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HALLUCINATIONS: 



THE RATIONAL HISTORY 



APPARITIONS, VISIONS, DREAMS, ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, 
AND SOMNAMBULISM. 



BY 



A. BRIERRE DE BOISMONT, 

DOCTETTR EN MEDECINE DE LA FACTJLTE DE PARIS, DIRECTEUR D'uN ETABLISSEMENT 

d'aLIENES, CHEVALIER DES ORDRES DE LA LEGION d'hONNEUR ET DU MERITE 

MILITAIRE DE POLOGNE, LAUREAT DE L'lNSTITUT ET DE L'ACADEMIE 

NATIONALE DE MEDECINE, MEMBRE DE PLUSIEURS SOCIETES 

SAV ANTES, ETC. ETC. ETC. 



FIRST AMERICAN, 

JFrom fbz £mn& 32,nXdLX%zb anir Improfofr $aris Titian. 




Ju^^2y 



PHILADELPHIA: 

LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON 

1853. 



-£^1 



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Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 

LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON, 

in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States in and 
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 




TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



The highly interesting subjects discussed in this volume, 
written by a very distinguished French physician, have seemed 
to demand a careful translation, in order that its usefulness may 
be more generally diffused. 

One of the principal propositions which the talented author 
has undertaken to prove is, that hallucination is not a necessary 
accompaniment or symptom of insanity, but that in certain 
cases it may be considered as a purely physiological phenome- 
non. He insists on the necessity of establishing an intimate 
union between philosophy and medicine ; especially in the treat- 
ment of mental diseases. " Psychological facts," he argues, 
" cannot be placed on the same line with sensible facts. The 
brain may be the seat, but is not the creator of intellectual 
operations. Ideas pre-exist their sensible signs." 

"Does not," he argues, "the analysis of different kinds of 
delirium afford a solid and experimental basis to metaphysics ? 
And is not the study of mysticism indispensable for the correct 
appreciation of mental alienation?" 

M. Brierre de Boismont treats the important and hitherto 
neglected subject of hallucination in various points of view, in- 
asmuch as it bears important relations to philosophy, medicine, 
religion, history, morality, and jurisprudence. The apparitions 
of Holy Writ are handled with the reverence befitting a Christ- 
ian, whilst much light is thrown on the probable origin of the 
hallucinations of many celebrated personages whose characters 
and actions were so exalted as to place them apparently above 
humanity. 

The book will offer attractions to many classes of readers. 
The theologian will admire the vein of reverence and morality 
which pervades it; the 'philosopher will find much food for study 



IV TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

and contemplation; the practical physician will avail himself of 
the knowledge and experience detailed in a great variety of 
cases ; the lawyer will be deeply impressed by the necessity of 
vigilance, and a close study of the case, before he gives in his 
verdict of insanity ; while the lover of the marvellous will find 
ample food for the gratification of his taste, in the number of 
strange and picturesque authenticated facts thus carefully col- 
lected. 



PKEEACE. 



A philosophical physician said, in speaking of the first edi- 
tion of this work : " If the author had been satisfied to treat 
the vast question of hallucinations as medical men usually treat 
a question of pathology, the medical press would have announced 
his monograph according to custom, with simple praises and 
very inoffensive criticisms ; medical science would have num- 
bered one more good work, and so the matter would have ended. 
But such has not been the case. M. Brierre de Boismont, in 
giving a less scholastic turn to his treatise, and introducing 
questions of historic psychology, has succeeded in electrifying 
both the press and the public. Thence have arisen those warm 
eulogies which have appeared in excellent journals, unconnected 
with medicine ; thence those keen, but polite criticisms which 
have been impartially received in a scientific magazine. It 
appears to me that this is a great triumph. It is no easy matter 
to make the chords of contemporary criticism, in general so slack, 
thus vibrate. The success is still greater, if a similar result 
has been obtained in defending the cause of truth and common 
sense."* 

This opinion strikes more forcibly as emanating from one 
whose judgment on such points is incontestable, and as being 
an immediate reply to attacks directed against our opinions in 
two highly esteemed journals. Let us, then, assert that if the 
identity of lunacy and hallucination has been contended for by 
eminent doctors, the doctrine that we have advocated, of the co- 
existence of reason with hallucinations, has been embraced and 
defended by very celebrated writers of the medical press — 
Messrs. Re'veille', Parise, Carriere, Ce'rise, Amedee Latour, 
Dechambre, Gouraud, Tardieu, Fuster, Miguel in France, Sig- 
mond in England, Ideler in Germany, etc. Two authors, Messrs. 

* C6rise, Examen des Hallucinations. 



VI PREFACE. 

Miche'a and Szafkowski, who have published, since myself, ex- 
cellent works on hallucinations, have also acknowledged that 
they might exist with sanity. Finally, M. Falret has expi i 
a similar opinion in his course of mental maladies. To these 
scientific authorities may be added the names of Victor Cousin, 
George Sand, and Lamartine, who have maintained similar opin- 
ions. 

The first position then of this book is clearly established. We 
have protested against the hypothesis which would make hallu- 
cination a constant symptom of lunacy ; and have demonstrated 
by the axioms of science alone that, in certain cases, it may 
be considered as a phenomenon purely physiological. Attack- 
ing the very heart of the subject, our object has been to combat 
the doctrine that would refer intellectual and moral acts to the 
pathological state of the organs. 

We have been blamed for introducing philosophy into medi- 
cine. " A vast abyss, it is said, separates philosophical ques- 
tions from those of practical and experimental medicine ; the 
understanding, the mind, the soul, must be left where this prin- 
ciple should rest. The physician who would be useful and 
practical, must only study the organs, their functions, the laws 
or the forces which regulate or disturb their action ; in short, 
there is no advantage in introducing spiritualism into medicine; 
because spiritualism, the object of faith, of feeling, of internal 
conviction, can neither be understood nor proved by human 
reason, and it is imprudent to submit it to such a criterion." 

If a preface offered a field for discussion, I should inquire 
what is meant by laws and forces which regulate or disturb the 
action of the organs ; but the question has too vast a range. To 
us, as to millions, man is an intelligence served by organs ; to 
account only for the latter, would be to tear a quill from the 
pinion of spiritual activity. If there be one branch of medicine 
in which this opinion would offer the strangest paradox, without 
doubt it is that of mental diseases. They incessantly oblige 
the physician to resort to the most difficult metaphysical pro- 
blems, unless, like a celebrated scholar, he masters the difficulty 
of psychological facts, by considering them as a secretion of the 
brain. Have the consequences of such a doctrine been well 
considered? If man be but like other animals, this doctrine 
does not alone apply to derangements of mind ; it has results 



PREFACE. Vll 

which touch closely on the general interests of society. But these 
consequences, says an esteemed writer, lead to such deplorable 
extremes, that one is sometimes tempted to doubt the power of 
human reason, and involuntarily to inquire if the first of animals 
be not destined, like all the others, blindly to obey a superior 
force, instead of endeavoring to found for himself his laws of 
conduct and his institutions. 

We therefore consider ourselves following out the truth, in 
maintaining the necessity of allying philosophy and medicine, 
especially in mental maladies. Acknowledged partisans of the 
principle of human duality, we reject the opinion which can only 
see in lunacy a pure and simple nervousness, like chorea, hys- 
teria, and epilepsy ; and in reason the product of a physiological 
action entirely material. To us, ideas have a different nature from 
sensations. Psychological facts cannot be placed on the same 
line with those that affect the senses. Although the brain may 
be the seat of intellectual operations, it is not the creator of 
them. The notion of the idea exists before that of its represen- 
tation, which we think M. Ferdinand Berthier has clearly proved 
in his analysis of the faculties of the deaf and dumb. 

The intervention of philosophy in medicine is incessantly ob- 
servable. See how a false idea wanders on the confines of 
reason and madness ; and although its true nature may be appre- 
ciated, does it not involve the most interesting and delicate 
questions on the existence of hallucination with the integrity of 
the faculties, on its proper position in the production of mental 
diseases ? 

Does not the analysis of the different kinds of delirium pre- 
sent a solid and experimental foundation to metaphysics? Is 
not the study of mysticism an indispensable preparation to the 
study of derangement, by tracing in a picturesque and special 
style the most delicate changes in the understanding and in the 
heart ? Do not the enchainment of laws and ideas, the various 
evolutions of the operations of mind, its sudden increase of 
power, the awakening of unknown faculties, the return of reason 
in many lunatics on the approach of death, presentiments, fore- 
sight, known facts of magnetism and somnambulism, border on 
most profound mysteries of the soul? And what have the 
organs to do with these curious phenomena, if not to serve as 



Vlll PREFACE. 

their theatre ? But what would they he if the workman did DOt 
direct all the threads ? 

Does not the view of great minds contending with madness, 
and which offer a constant subject for meditation, induce a cease- 
less examination of those high spiritual questions which are de- 
clared useless in medicine ? Truly has a modern author said : 
" The day when philosophy shall descend with her torch to the 
study of mental affections, she will find an ample range for novel 
observations. As in a ruined city, monuments are here and 
there discovered, which show traces of the genius of an extinct 
nation; so in the great ravages of madness, evidences are every- 
where perceived amidst the ruin of the faculties, of that immor- 
tal principle which animates them." To this authority we can 
add that of Descartes, who asserts that to medicine we shall owe 
discoveries destined to extend the domain of philosophy. 

Since the fundamental condition of a serious book is to be 
complete in itself, it can easily be understood why we have boldly 
approached philosophical problems. Had we been content sim- 
ply to state facts, and thence timidly draw conclusions, we might 
have been placed on firmer ground, and have created more cer- 
tain advantages ; but we are convinced that our book would 
have presented numerous hiatuses, if we had not grappled un- 
hesitatingly with the exigencies of our subject. We are aware 
that men who are accustomed to close their eyes to whatsoever is 
not a material fact, will condemn this attempt, and will even 
go as far as to assert that imagination has driven reason off the 
road. We appeal to enlightened physicians, who see beyond 
that first step which forms the material part of science. These 
will perhaps say that we are deceived ; but they will at least do 
us the justice to acknowledge that we have not been prevented 
by the fear of error from seeking truth wherever it might be 
found. 

This preamble was necessary to initiate the reader in the in- 
tention of this work. Destined to exhibit one of the most curi- 
ous phenomena of human psychology, mentioned in many sacred 
and profane authors, it could not, in our opinion, be composed 
only of a series of medical observations. 

In fact, the question of hallucinations, medically considered, 
offers a large field of research; but we do not think that it 
should be confined within these limits. This subject verges on 



PREFACE. IX 

all that is most elevated in the world. Religious dogmas, his- 
story, philosophy, morality, are intimately connected with its 
study. If all hallucinations were to be ranked as mere nights 
of delirious imagination, the sacred books would be but an error; 
Christianity, that powerful mainspring of social and individual 
perfection, an error ; the belief of our fathers, our own, that of 
our children, all errors. "And yet," says a celebrated writer, 
" there are problems in human nature, whose solution is not of 
this world — problems which must defy the mind that strives 
to explain them ; there is a morality that seeks a sanction, an 
origin, and an end ; so many fruitful sources to prove that reli- 
gion is a necessity, not a simple form of sensibility, a transport 
of imagination, or a poetic fantasy. 

The religious side of the question could no more escape criti- 
cism than the philosophical view of it; so that we have also 
been attacked on that point. We will make but one observation; 
we have never had the singular notion of making this book one 
of theology ; but full of respect for the creeds which have 
thrown so bright a refulgence on the world, to which humanity 
owes its greatest conquests, and which can alone save it from 
the abyss, we cannot keep silence when we hear them loudly 
proclaimed as the lucubrations of diseased brains. All is united 
in the edifice of religion and morality; one brick cannot be 
displaced, without overthrowing the whole building. We have 
therefore been particular in affirming that a very decided line 
of separation ought to be established between the apparitions of 
Holy Writ, and the hallucinations of profane writers, and even 
of many Christian characters ; the former, in our opinion, can 
only be referred to divine power, whilst a number of the latter 
are consequent on a particular state of the brain, on the pre- 
vailing ideas of the time, or on the derangement of the cerebral 
functions. 

In support of the doctrine we advocate on the character of 
the sacred books, we will make a quotation from a discourse, 
delivered by M. Guizot, at a public meeting of the Bible 
Society : — 

" What is the grand question, the chief question that just 
now occupies all minds ? It is a question lying between those 
who recognize, and those who deny a supernatural order, certain 
and sovereign, although impenetrable to human reason ; the 



X PREFACE. 

question being (to call things by their right names), between 
luralism and rationalism. On the one side the incredu- 
lous, pantheists, skeptics of all degrees, pure rationalists ; on 
the other side Christians. 

•• Amongst the former, the better kind allow the existence in 
the world and in the soul of a statue of God, if such an expres- 
sion may be permitted, but a statue only, an image in marble. 
God himself is not there ; the Christian alone has a living 
God. 

"It is a living God that we need. It is necessary for our 
present and future salvation, that faith in the supernatural, 
respect and submission to the supernatural should live in the 
world and in the human soul ; in great, as in simple minds ; in 
the highest, as in the lowliest stations. The real, efficacious, 
and regenerating influence of religious creeds, rests on this con- 
dition ; without it, they are superficial, and wellnigh useless. 

" The sacred books are the sources whence this sublime truth 
is received and its empire established. They are the history of 
the supernatural order ; the history of Deity in man and in the 
world. 

"And be not disturbed at the difficulty of the work, the 
small number of actual believers, nor at the vast number of 
those who neither believe nor care. The difficulty and the 
number of adversaries was still greater when Christianity first 
appeared on earth. There is more power in one grain of faith, 
than in mountains of doubt and indifference."* 

The actual doctrine of hallucinations is, besides, in direct 
opposition to a sentiment innate in man, which makes him fling 
away an hypothesis, the principle of which is that, for six thou- 
sand years, he has been the puppet of illusions. Truth is eter- 
nal; it has shone since the appearance of man on earth, and 
ceases not at this moment to enlighten him. Scientific systems 
may change ; but there are ideas and principles fixed on the 
immovable basis of immutability. 

The doctrine of hallucinations is not less afflicting in a 
human point of view. What more painful and distressing, in 
fact, than to pretend that the sublimest opinions, the greatest 
enterprises, the noblest acts, have been taught or done by mad- 

* Debats, of the 1st of May, 1851. 



PKEFACE. XI 

men under hallucinations, adding, as a corrective, what matters 
the means, so the end be obtained ? Will not history and rea- 
son agree, in protesting against the madness of Socrates, of 
Luther, of Joan of Arc, of George Fox, and of many others ? 

Of what nature, then, it may be asked, were the hallucinations 
of these celebrated personages ? They depended on a complex 
influence; they proceeded at once from the tribute paid by these 
choice spirits to the beliefs of the times, to that ecstatic cha- 
racter which the struggles of the soul impart to ideas, and, 
finally, to the natural organization ; for, as M. de Saint Beuve 
justly remarks, it is too frequently forgotten that every one has 
his peculiar humor in his philosophy and in his theology. Pas- 
cal had an unquiet and melancholy humor, thence his visionary 
views. Bossuet had a calm humor, thence partly arose the 
serenity of his views; and that independently of the greatness 
of their minds, and the nature of their ideas.* 

No serious comparison can be made between the hallucinations 
of those famous men and those of the visionaries of our day. 
There, enterprises conceived, carried out, consummated with all 
the power of reason, the train of facts, the force of genius, 
and with whom the hallucination was but an auxiliary ; here, 
projects without connection, without aim, without fact, and 
always stamped with insanity. 

But it may be said, How does it happen that this species of 
hallucination has disappeared in our day ? Here is a reply to 
the query : to be hallucinated in this manner needs profound 
conviction, intense belief, extreme love of humanity ; to live in 
the midst of a society partaking of the same belief, and willing, in 
case of necessity, to die for it. Then they walked with the age. 
Where are new creeds ? Where are the martyrs ? What voice 
governs the world? Every one lives for himself and in himself. 
Skepticism has gained all classes. Generous devotedness excites 
a smile. Material happiness is the motto. It will be allowed 
that such a disposition of mind is little favorable to enthusiasm 
and great enterprises.f 

We know that there have been in religion, in morals, and in 

* Of Saint Bevue, Pascal's Thoughts. Thoughts on Two Worlds, July, 
1844. 

f From not having a proper understanding of the value of words, men 
attribute opinions to others which they do not hold. 



Xll PREFACE. 

history, men, dupes of their imaginations and their ignorance, 
who have desired to impose their reveries on others. It is one 
of the accidents of humanity, which is too easily drawn into 
error ; amongst these, many were deceived without heing mad- 
men. It was with them, as with thousands of men, who, in the 
most civilized countries, adopted superstitious ideas, without 
being less capable of regulating their lives. 

Ambition has doubtless made blamable use of hallucinations. 
Who would deny it ? That visions and apparitions have been 
feigned by impostors is incontrovertible. But to all who have 
studied the question, the fraud is so easily discovered that we 
shall not even attempt a refutation. 

In following out these researches, we have had two objects ; 
the one, to protest against the doctrines we believe are contrary 
to truth ; the other, to write an historical and medical history 
of hallucinations. 

It would appear impossible that such a programme should be 
otherwise than favorably noticed by the critic, or not meet with 
general sympathy. 

We have but one word to add ; it relates to particular facts ; 
we have deduced them from our own practice, or borrowed them 
from the most reliable authors, always being careful to acknow- 
ledge their source, to translate them ourselves from the originals, 
and to select amongst them the most interesting and the least 
known. Their authenticity has been generally proved as many 
of them have been made public. Little inclined to unite in a 
spirit of rivalry, or in the conspiracy of silence against modern 
authors, we have not hesitated to borrow for this new edition 
such remarks and observations as have appeared to us to throw 
new light on our subject, and we believe that the choice we have 
made will add greatly to the interest of the book. 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION 17 



CHAPTER I. 

DEFINITION AND DIVISION OF HALLUCINATIONS. 

Importance of the study of hallucinations — Definition of authors — Outline of the 
principal classifications — Character of the one presented by the author . 31 



CHAPTER II. 

HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 

Influence of reverie in the production of hallucinations — Distinctions to be esta- 
blished — On the reverie of Orientals — Belief in the supernatural — 1. Recognized, 
spontaneous, ephemeral, and prolonged hallucinations ; 2. Unrecognized hallu- 
cinations — Causes of hallucinations — Observations borrowed from historical 
personages — Their importance — Recapitulation 40 



CHAPTER III. 

HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 

Section I. — Simple isolated hallucinations — Their action on the mind — Profound 
conviction of the hallucinated — Loss of the senses no obstacle to hallucina- 
tions — Cases — Of hallucination of hearing by deaf persons — Hallucinations, in- 
ternal and external, isolated or combined — Hallucination of the sight — Visions — 
Visionaries — Belief in apparitions — These hallucinations vary like those of 
hearing — Hallucinations in weakness or loss of sight — The hallucinated be- 
lieve they can see inside their bodies, a power analogous to that possessed 
by persons magnetized — Hallucinations of sight and hearing combined — Hallu- 
cination of the touch — Difficulties of diagnosis — Certain tactile hallucinations 



xiv CONTENTS. 

referable to hypochondriacal illusions — HaUueinaHoru <>f I rare 

as the preceding — Hallucinations rarely unconnected with one of the forma of 
insanity — Very common in madness and Borera! other diseases — Recapitulation, 

Section II. — General hallucinations — Recapitulation . ... 10 



CHAPTER IV. 

ON HALLUCINATIONS AS CONNECTED WITH ILLUSIONS. 

Frequency of illusions — Opinions relative to the errors of the senses — Charac- 
teristics by which illusions and hallucinations are distinguished — Opinions of 
MM. Calmeil, Aubanel, and Dechambre ; their concurrence — Peculiar charac- 
teristics of illusions — Internal hallucinations allied with sensations of hypo- 
chondriacs — Illusions are observed both in a healthy and a morbid state — 
Illusions of hearing and of sight — Causes — Illusions of sight sometimes epi- 
demic — Aerial illusions — Causes of public illusions — Illusions of hearing — 
Motives for the chapter — Illusions may precede, accompany, or succeed 
hallucinations — Illusions may be isolated or general — Illusions very capricious — 
Illusions, like hallucinations, may induce the commission of reprehensible acts — 
Illusions of the touch, of the smell, of the taste — Their influence on the con- 
duct of madmen — Illusions almost always accompany hallucinations — Reca- 
pitulation 103 



CHAPTER V. 

HALLUCINATIONS ARRANGED IN THE ORDER OF THEIR FREQUENCY. 

The varieties of monomania with which they most generally unite — Observations 
on lypemania — Hallucinations are a reflex of the habits of the insane — Ob- 
servations on demonology of the incubus — Nature of sexual hallucinations — 
Observations on nostalgia — Observations on calentura — Recapitulation . 119 



CHAPTER VI. 

ON HALLUCINATIONS IN STUPOR. 

The greater number of persons affected "with stupor have hallucinations and illu- 
sions — Symptomatology — Arrangement of hallucinations and illusions in some 
patients — Cases of stupor — Remarks on this malady — Recapitulation . 135 



CONTENTS. XV 



CHAPTER VII. 



ON HALLUCINATIONS IN MANIA. 

On the frequency of hallucinations in mania — Why ? — Abstract of hallucinations 
in mania — Cases — Observations on the inclination to steal — Progress of hallu- 
cinations — Hallucinations may be symptomatic — Remarks on the influence of 
the sexual organs — Hallucinations in puerperal mania — Effects of hallucina- 
tions and illusions on maniacs — Recapitulation 141 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ON HALLUCINATIONS IN DEMENTIA. 

Section I. — Hallucinations more frequent in dementia than is generally sup- 
posed — To what may the fact be attributed — Division of dementia into mono- 
maniac and maniac, complete and senile — Abstract of hallucinations in dementia 
— Case of monomaniac dementia — Case of maniac dementia — Difficulty of dis- 
tinguishing the shades of difference — Hallucinations may be of an intermittent 
character — Case of complete dementia — Case of senile dementia — Recapitula- 
tion. 

Section II. — Hallucinations exist in dementia with general paralysis — Abstract — 
Cases — Recapitulation. 

Section III. — Hallucinations viewed in relation to imbeeility, idiotism, and cre- 
tinism — They may exist in the first, but they are never observed in the last 
two — Recapitulation 152 

CHAPTER IX. 

OF HALLUCINATIONS IN DELIRIUM TREMENS. 

Approximative statistics of cases of insanity, from the abuse of intoxicating 
drink — The illusions and hallucinations to which inebriates are subject — 
Cases— Nature of the hallucinations — They may be attended with very serious 
results — Delirium tremens includes different diseases — Drunkenness — Its con- 
nection with drunken alienation — Recapitulation 163 

CHAPTER X. 

OF HALLUCINATIONS IN NERVOUS DISEASES. 

Hallucinations in catalepsy, epilepsy, hysteria, hypochondria, chorea, rage, etc. — 
Recapitulation 170 



XVI . CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XI. 



OF HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 

Section I. — Hallucinations in nightmare — Its analogy to madness — Varieties of 
nightmare — Its coexistence with reason and with insanity. 

Section II. — Hallucinations in dreams — Analogy between dreams and hallucina- 
tions — Two divisions : physiological dreams, and pathological dreams — Psycho- 
logical condition of dreams — Difference between hallucinations in dreams and 
those of waking hours — Hypnagogical hallucinations — Physiological studies 
— Coincidence of dreams with events — Presentiments — Facts in support there- 
of — Persistence of the intelligent principle in dreams — Pathological dreams — 
Influence of dominant ideas on dreams — Importance of dreams in the insane 
— Nocturnal epidemic hallucinations — Periodical hallucinations — They may 
become permanent — Recapitulation 182 



CHAPTER XII. 

OE HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, AND SOMNAMBULISM. 

Section I. — Ecstasy is very favorable to hallucinations — Case — Religious ecsta- 
sies — Times and circumstances favorable to ecstasies — Physiological ecstasy — 
Morbid ecstasy — This division allows the convenient classification of subjects 
of ecstasy — Ecstatic subjects — Ecstasies noticed in children — Various forms of 
ecstasy; cataleptic, hysteric, mystic, maniac, monomaniac, and epidemic — 
Ecstatic sleep — The scarred maiden of the Tyrol — Ecstatic phenomena have 
been exhibited in all ages — The preaching disease in Sweden — Ecstatic hallu- 
cinations of religious persons. 

Section II. — Of foresight, second sight, magnetism, and somnambulism, in con- 
nection with hallucinations — Analogy between somnambulism and dreams — 
Of diurnal somnambulism — Of moral freedom in the hallucinations of somnam- 
bulism. — Recapitulation 212 

CHAPTER XIII. 

OF HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE, INFLAMMATORY, ACUTE, CHRONIC, AND 
OTHER MALADIES. 

Of hallucinations and illusions in acute delirium and brain diseases — Congestion, 
arachnites, encephalites, softening of the brain, cerebro-spinal meningitis, 
etc. — Of hallucinations in fever ; effects of fever on the imagination — Hallu- 
cinations in typhoid, typhus, and intermittent fevers — Hallucinations in 



CONTENTS. XV11 

diseases of the digestive and biliary passages — Parenchymatous inflamma- 
tions may be combined with hallucinations and pneumonia; hallucinations 
after a suppression — Hallucinations in gout, disease of the heart, pellagra, 
and chlorosis — Hallucinations in syncope and convalescence — Hallucinations 
from atmospheric influence — Hallucinations may precede disease — Hallucina- 
tions in the last stage of chronic disease — Recapitulation . . . 260 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 

Etiology of hallucinations and illusions — It should be sought in the psychical and 
corporeal elements of man, and above all in ideas, in hallucinations of long 
standing, single and compatible with reason. 

First Division. — Moral causes ; their influence on hallucination — Statistic — Epi- 
demic hallucinations — Influence of dominant ideas — Demonology, sorcery, 
magic, lycantrophy, apparitions, vampirism, ecstasies — Influence of different 
civilizations — Influence of the passions, of fixed ideas, of preoccupations of 
the mind, and of bodily occupations. 

Second Division. — Physical causes. — These may be subdivided into five heads : 
1. The influence of inheritance, of the sexes, of age, etc. — 2. The influence 
of mechanical causes, of fermented liquors and narcotic and poisonous sub- 
stances — 3. The influence of mental diseases — 4. The influence of nervous dis- 
eases other than insanity — 5. The influence of acute, chronic, and other dis- 
eases — Recapitulation .......... 282 



CHAPTER XV. 

ON HALLUCINATIONS CONSIDERED IN A PSYCHOLOGICAL, HISTORICAL, AND 
RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 

Difference of the psychology of hallucinations, as dependent on soundness of 
mind or insanity — Incitements to madness — Introduction of physiology into his- 
tory — The philosophy of history contrary to this doctrine — Development of sen- 
sorial impressions in the brain ; the change which they undergo — Hallucinations 
differ according to the character of individuals — A few words on the nature and 
seat of hallucinations — Influence of the nervous and sanguine systems — Of the 
nature of ideas — Division of ideas into spiritual and sensual — The second 
alone furnish materials for hallucinations — Influence of attention, comparison, 
imagination, memory, and association, on the mechanism of hallucination — Cor- 
poreity of spiritual ideas caused by the abuse of abstraction — Apparitions of 
Cassius, Brutus, and Julian — Hallucinations do not alone borrow their mate- 
rials from actual ideas; they are also reminiscences of old and erroneous 
B 



XV111 CONTENTS. 

impressions — The origin of false ideas may be found in a forgetfulness of the 
knowledge of God and of self — In many cases, hallucination is almost a normal 
state, which explains why so many celebrated men have been attacked by it, 
without becoming insane — Historical hallucinations show themselves first in 
persons collectively ; secondly individually — Examples of Loyola, Luther, Joan 
of Arc, and G. Fox — Each of these characters may be looked on as the per- 
sonification of an epoch, a useful idea — Their hallucinations do not, in general, 
offer any analogy to those of the present time, which are more or less com- 
bined with madness — In every celebrated man there is a spiritual character 
(history), and a mortal character (biography) — Many hallucinations are those 
of the age, not of the individual — A line of division ought to be established 
between the apparitions of Holy Writ and the hallucinations of profane 
history, and even those of many Christians — Recapitulation . . . 351 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS AND ILLUSIONS. 

Of psychical and psycho-sensorial hallucinations — The interposition of the 
senses — Intellectual and sensorial phenomena of hallucinations of sight and 
hearing — Statistics — Double-sighted hallucination — Phenomena of hallucina- 
tions of smell, taste, touch, and general sensitiveness — Manner of the associa- 
tions of hallucinations — Periods favorable to the production of hallucinations — 
Hallucinations in dreams — Symptoms of illusions — Sexual hallucinations — In- 
tellectual mechanism of hallucinations — Circumstances favorable to the pro- 
duction of hallucinations — Of the hallucinatory state — Recapitulation . 409 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY. 

A priori, the production of hallucination not easily explained by an anatomical 
lesion— How account, by pathological anatomy, for the hallucinations of the 
child, the thinker, and the poet? — Intermittence another objection — Autopsy 
without characteristic anatomical disorders — The greater number of physicians 
do not believe, in the present state of science, in any special known alteration 
— The relation of lesions to hallucinations offers nothing positive — The brain 
is doubtless modified ; but its mode of change is entirely unknown — Recapitu- 
lation . 449 



CONTENTS. XIX 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

PROGRESS — DURATION — DIAGNOSIS — PROGNOSIS. 

Progress and continuance — Hallucinations are irregular, remittent, sometimes 
constant — Causes which influence them in their progress — The peculiar form 
which the madness assumes exercises an action on hallucinations — Intermit- 
tences — Periodical attacks. 

Duration — Exhibits great differences — Varies according to the character of the 
hallucination. 

Diagnosis — Hallucinations easily discovered when the patient speaks of them, 
sometimes impossible when he maintains silence — Signs by which they may 
be recognized — Different characteristics of nocturnal hallucinations, somnam- 
bulism and ecstasy — Difference between hallucinations and illusions — The forms 
of insanity may make the diagnosis uncertain. 

Prognosis — Varies according to the kind — The prognosis modified by the period 
— Different forms of alienation have a marked influence — Nervous diseases 
aggravated by hallucinations — Hallucinations of long endurance change their 
nature — Prognosis of simple and general hallucinations — Hallucinations 
acknowledged by the patients seldom serious — The prognosis more important 
in hypochondria, hysteria, epilepsy, and certain varieties of illusions. — Reca- 
pitulation 454 



CHAPTER XIX. 

TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 

Opinions of MM. Esquirol, Lelut, and Calmeil — Opinion of Leuret — Sequestration 
— Two divisions : 1st. Physical treatment — Use of datura stramonium — Halluci- 
nations sometimes suddenly cured — Electricity — 2d. Moral treatment — Author's 
method — Leuret's method — Objections — Treatment of hallucinations in the 
diseases which they characterize — Recapitulation ..... 463 



CHAPTER XX. 

OF HALLUCINATIONS CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 

The hallucinated confounded with vagrants, robbers, murderers, etc. — 1. In- 
fluence of hallucinations on the conduct during waking and sleeping — 2. Influ- 
ence of illusions under similar circumstances — 3. Of sequestration, commission 
of lunacy, and competency to testify — Hallucinations causes of injurious and 



XX CONTENTS. 

dangerous actions, such as suicide, homicide, robbery, arson, challenges, duels, 
etc. — Facts — The occurrences which take place in maniacal delirium and in 
acute delirium are often the results of hallucinations and illusions — Sometimes 
hallucination is the real cause of acts performed under the influence of an 
illusion — The decisions caused by hallucinations are sometimes instantaneous 
— Certain circumstances, such as darkness, etc., appear to favor them — The 
hallucinations of sleep may occasion crimes — Medico-legal examination of 
sudden hallucinations — Instances of illusions which have caused crimes — The 
delirium of drunkards is very frequently accompanied by hallucinations and 
illusions — Hallucinations and illusions explain many actions which appear 
incomprehensible ........... 499 



ON HALLUCINATIONS 



INTRODUCTION. 

At every epoch in the history of man — in the most opposite 
latitudes — under the most diverse governments — among all reli- 
gions — we constantly find the same belief in ghosts and appa- 
ritions. How has so universal an opinion been established? Its 
source must evidently be sought in physical organization. In 
fact, if we study man in a physiological point of view, we per- 
ceive that he is governed by an irresistible desire for the un- 
known, which most generally exhibits itself in a love for the 
marvellous. The savage, who dreams of the Great Spirit, and 
of boundless hunting-grounds — the man of the Middle Ages, 
who kneels on the threshold of the purgatory of St. Patrick — 
the Arab, who wanders amid the enchanted palaces of the Thou- 
sand and One Nights — the Indian, who is absorbed in the incar- 
nations of Brahma — the inhabitant of the civilized world, who, 
while professing to believe nothing, secretly consults a pythoness, 
or asks of magnetism what it cannot give — all obey this one 
desire to believe in something. 

On a superficial view, we are surprised that opinions which so 
strongly resemble each other should have acquired so much power, 
and are tempted to inquire whether we are made up of error, the 
puppets of illusions; but looking deeper into the question, we 
perceive that they are but a deviation from the two great laws 
of our existence — the knowledge of God, and of ourselves. 

History and tradition agree on this point, that man came from 

the hands of his Creator pure, but free. Whilst reason guided 

him, error and superstition slept ; but as soon as the abuse of 

liberty produced a forgetfulness of his origin, and of its inten- 

2 



18> INTRODUCTION. 

tion, his passions, no longer restrained, misled him ; his mind be- 
came more and more bewildered. On the one side, tormented.by 
the recollection of the point whence he started ; on the other, 
led away by imagination, he plunged into a world of chimeras. 

Imagination unceasingly strives to break the links which 
enchain her to reason ; when that is accomplished, there are no 
fables, no strange beliefs, no singular illusions, no wild dreams 
that she will not disseminate. Bacon says we would rather 
believe than examine ; and this disposition is powerfully shown 
in the infancy of the human mind. Few epochs have been 
so favorable to the triumphs of the imagination, as the Mid- 
dle Ages; all kinds of fantastic creations seem there to have 
assembled. The air is filled with strange birds — the earth is 
overrun with terrible animals — the seas are peopled with mon- 
strous fish; beyond the limits of the known world, are beautiful 
countries, new terrestrial paradises. Such beliefs, developed 
amidst the incursions of barbarians, the devastations of the earth, 
and the terrors of the end of the world, suggested the idea of 
an invisible power, which nothing could resist. Thus prepared, 
people listened with avidity to histories of spirits, and of sor- 
cerers, the reciter frightening himself no less than his auditors. 
The explanation given by Malebranche, of the manner in which 
such opinions obtained credit, appears so just that it naturally 
merits a place here. A herdsman relates the adventures of 
the Sabbath, after supper, to his wife and his children. His 
imagination being somewhat exalted by the fumes of wine, he 
speaks with force and animation. Doubtless, the wife and chil- 
dren tremble with fear, convinced of the truth of all they have 
heard. It may be a husband, or a father, who speaks of what 
he has seen, of what he has done ; they love and respect, why 
should they not believe him? These recitals, deeply graven 
on their memories, accumulate; their fears have passed away, 
but their convictions remain; finally, curiosity overcomes them. 
They anoint themselves; they go to rest; in their dreams they 
see the ceremonies of the Sabbath.* On rising, they relate 
their visions ; they are resolved on belief, and he whose imagi- 
nation is most vivid soon arranges the fanciful history of the 
Sabbath. Here we have at once sorcerers created by the herds- 

* The fact of the ointment is here verified. 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

man, and they will make a host of others, unless fear prevents 
their reciting similar stories. 

Such, in fact, is the origin of a multitude of errors. Once 
admitted, they are repeated, then systematized, then reduced to 
doctrines, which are introduced into the mind amongst its ear- 
liest ideas, bring into subjection the finest understandings, and 
persist for ages, until reason, reasserting her rights, drives back 
imagination within proper limits. 

When entire nations accept erroneous ideas as facts, and teach 
them by lessons, books, pictures, sculptures — in a word, by all 
the surroundings of social life — they become such that no one 
can overcome them without divine aid. The great men of the 
age partake to a certain extent of the opinions and prejudices of 
their contemporaries ; but these false notions have no effect on 
their conduct. The representatives of a necessary and useful 
idea — its incarnation, if I may so express myself — their mission 
is providential. They are driven by an irresistible impulse to 
do as they do, and their actions assert the development of the 
highest faculties of the human mind. 

Let us apply these principles to the subject of our work, with 
the aid of some ideas borrowed from psychology. The outward 
world affects us, it invades all the senses, peoples the brain with 
millions of images, which an emotion, a passion, an abstraction, 
can suddenly reproduce with all their variety and diversity of 
coloring. Hence the desire that all have to feast on images. 
These pictured reminiscences, which impress us in two different 
modes, according to which they appear to us false or real, con- 
stitute the phenomena of hallucinations. But the senses are not 
the only sources of our ideas : some are derived from the soul, 
from God; these are general ideas, pure perceptions, which 
cannot be pictured ; they only enter the region of hallucination 
by an overwrought abstraction ; the form under which they are 
presented is but the result of the imperfection of our nature; the 
spirituality of man is not thereby affected. 

The sensible signs which form the exclusive materials for hal- 
lucinations, everything that exerts a powerful impression on the 
mind, can, under certain circumstances, produce an image, a 
sound, a smell, etc. Thus, when a man has long resigned him- 
self to profound meditation, he frequently finds the idea which 
has absorbed him clothed in a material form : on the cessation 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

of the mental effort, the vision disappears, and it is explained by 
natural laws. But, should this man live at a time when appari- 
tions, demons, spirits, phantoms, are a general belief, the vision 
becomes a reality; with this difference, that if his intellects are 
healthy, and his mind clear, this apparition has no power over 
him, and he can fulfil the duties of his social life as well as he 
who has no hallucinations. 

This remark applies forcibly to the hallucinations of eminent 
men. To have been raised above the belief of their times, they 
should have inherited another nature, especially where the belief 
had nothing of a reprehensible character. In adopting it, they 
partook of a social error ; but their enterprises, their actions, 
their doctrines, were those of philosophers, of moralists, of bene- 
factors of their kind. They fulfilled a needful mission, and their 
names are justly inscribed among those who glorify humanity. 

Who is not struck by the extreme differences which separate 
these from those who are hallucinated in our day? The former, 
powerful, logical, full of grandeur in their actions, are the repre- 
sentatives of an epoch, a want, an idea. The latter, feeble, unde- 
cided, illusive, are the expression of no desire ; their missions are 
useless, aimless. The hallucinations of the one are consequent 
on the times ; they have no influence on their reason ; whilst 
those of the others prove an unhealthy individual organization, 
and are always more or less mixed up with madness. 

An important point, which must not be lost sight of, is that, in 
the greater number of these, the hallucination was only an auxili- 
ary to their thought. The illustrious men, so unjustly placed in 
the catalogue of lunatics, began by conceiving and arranging 
their plans, stamped with the impress of genius ; and it was only 
when, having profoundly considered them in all their bearings — 
their minds having attained the highest degree of enthusiasm, 
that prime mover of great actions — that they saw their thought 
take a form. The condition designated by the word hallucination, 
which we use for want of a better, was not in these cases a symp- 
tom of madness, but the result of the highest pitch of attention. 

In reading the life of an illustrious personage, we must never 
lose sight of the fact that it is composed of a history and a 
biography; — history as the spiritual, biography as the mortal 
part. To judge of one without the other, would be to deceive 
ourselves and others. The upspringings of genius give rise to 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

phenomena, which are frequently derived from the public voice ; 
they are the rough materials, which disappear beneath the knife 
of the operator, to leave but the perfect result; they are, so to 
speak, hallucinations ; but they have no effect upon acquired 
truths ; and these exist as well before as after the life of him 
who has been made their interpreter. Considering its duality, 
we think that an idea is, like man, composed of two parts — the 
one spiritual, the other material ; and hallucination, considered 
in its characteristic phenomena, is the material reproduction of 
an idea. It is the highest degree of tension of which the deep 
thinker is capable — a real ecstasy. Amongst people of strong 
conviction, where imagination is not enlightened by science, it 
is the reflection of general belief; but in neither case does it offer 
any obstacle to the free exercise of reason. It is an incontro- 
vertible fact that the most celebrated men have been subject 
to hallucinations, without being in the least degree suspected of 
mental aberration. 

But, however strongly we may protest against accusing these 
learned men of madness, we nevertheless admit that hallucina- 
tions, combined with loss of reason, have existed amongst a cer- 
tain number of persons renowned in history. 

The necessity of belief is a distinctive trait of our nature. If 
we take both faith and reason for our guides, we are surely led 
without obstacle to the end we would attain ; but if we lean ex- 
clusively on one or the other, the result must be sadly erroneous. 
Faith without reason leads directly to superstition; and reason 
without faith almost always results in arrogance. The halluci- 
nations which arise from these two sources of error will be as 
various as the habitual ideas and occupations of the individual. 
The craving to know, unregulated, will produce monstrosities of 
every kind. The desire of excitement, indulged in, will drive 
even the most enlightened nations into absurdities, and give an 
ephemeral triumph to impostors, until a new excitement arises to 
replace that which last existed. It would be impossible to give 
a luminous account of the hallucinations resulting from these 
two causes ; they would be as numerous as the combinations of 
thought, and as diversified as character. 

However much the false direction of the mental powers may be 
the cause of these hallucinations, they cannot all be so classed. 
Some are the result of disease, some of certain substances intro- 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

duced into the system, etc. The primitive phenomenon is always 
the same ; but the cause differs. We have, therefore, thought it 
well to separate it into two classes ; namely, moral causes and 
physical causes. In treating of hallucinations and their etiology, 
considered psychologically, historically, morally, and religiously, 
we shall enter fully into such a development as the importance 
of the subject demands. 

In a question of this nature, it is natural that our opinion 
should be required on apparitions mentioned in Holy Writ. It 
belongs neither to our principles nor to our convictions to evade 
a reply. We admit the authenticity of the recitals both of the 
Old and the New Testament ; we believe in the intervention of 
the Divinity to establish a religion, the founder of which pro- 
claimed his mission by the destruction of the worship of false 
gods, by the abolition of slavery, and the creation of family ties. 

But whilst we have established for profane history the fact 
that there are hallucinations compatible with reason, that there 
are others aggravated by insanity, resulting from an unhealthy 
organization, we at the same time believe that many religious per- 
sons have had hallucinations connected with the opinions, the 
errors, and prejudices of the age, without influencing their rea- 
son ; and that others, on the contrary, have been victims of a 
delirious imagination. Our general laws are stamped with the 
seal of our weakness, since their exceptions are incessantly placed 
side by side with them. 

Now, if we consider the chief points of this chapter, we shall 
observe that a craving for the unknown, to which is related or 
whence springs the desire to know, the love of the marvellous, 
the thirst for emotions, proceeds from the violation of the two 
grand laws which preside over human destiny — the knowledge of 
God and of ourselves. 

Reason, quitting the path of plain doctrine and calm philoso- 
phy, becomes uncertain, vacillating, leaves the field free to Ima- 
gination, which, delighting in paradoxes, dreams, and chimeras, 
and reigning supreme, throws ideas into a multitude of false 
positions, which, becoming afterwards systematized, serve for 
the development of other species. 

But thought — that food of the mind, that mysterious link be- 
tween the soul and the body — acts in two ways upon man : by its 
visible and its spiritual sign. If a moral or physical cause acts 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

on the mind with sufficient power to create a visible picture, as in 
the phenomenon of hallucinations, an image is produced ; thus, in 
derangement, the mind is not the diseased part, it is the organ 
alone that suffers. The instrument is defective — the mind that 
directed it is untouched; it rests inactive, but it is never injured; 
sometimes it even struggles through all obstacles, and proves 
that all its energy is preserved, notwithstanding its long rest. 
In its sickness, obliged to act on a chimera, it has continued its 
functions with perfect regularity. 

When neglect of fundamental principles has multiplied false 
notions, filled the mind with superstitions and errors, which have 
become general belief, the visible signs by which these notions 
are impressed on us exhibit themselves in hallucinations; thus, 
in periods of individuality, they are manifested in forms con- 
nected w T ith the habitual preoccupation of whosoever is presented 
to the eyes of the mind. 

The effects of hallucinations are of two kinds : either they 
have no influence on the mind, or they are accompanied by mad- 
ness. 

But in recognizing the authority of reason, it must not be 
forgotten that it is under restraint, and that consequently it can 
be checked and controlled; and, convinced with Bossuet that 
religion can only come under its influence to a certain point, and 
under fixed limits, we admit the authenticity of the apparitions 
of Holy Writ, which we separate entirely from the hallucinations 
of religious men occasioned by general belief, and compatible 
with reason. 

These preliminaries established, we proceed to give the general 
arrangement of our work: — 

The definition of hallucination should precede its history; with 
that, therefore, the book commences. It has been argued that 
it would be more logical to begin by the method of analysis 
and synthesis ; but that would require tortuous paths ; we prefer 
the one which at once gives a clear idea of the question. 

If hallucination were a simple fact, its classification would not 
require such enlarged development ; but it is far from being so. 
This particular state of the mind is seen under a multitude of 
aspects. It exists with reason, it constitutes a variety in mad- 
ness ; frequently, strange metamorphoses of feeling mask it com- 
pletely. Almost always it accompanies alienation, of which it 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

is then but a symptom. It exists in nightmare, in dreams, in 
ecstasies ; certain nervous diseases, such as epilepsy, hysteria, 
hypochondria, are also frequently united with it ; indeed, it is 
likewise observed in many inflammatory, chronic, and other 
affections. This multiplicity of forms has led us to establish ten 
sections. 

The first is devoted to hallucinations compatible with reason. 
The facts which are cited indisputably establish the fact that 
the reproduction of cerebral images can take place without de- 
rangement of the intellectual faculties ; they will serve hereafter 
to explain the hallucinations of celebrated men falsely accused 
of madness. 

The second section comprises simple hallucinations, but stamped 
with the character of alienation. Individuals are persuaded that 
they see, hear, smell, taste, and handle things that are impal- 
pable to the senses of those about them. These false sensations 
exist even in the absence of the senses. Thus, the blind say that 
they see angels and devils. The deaf recite conversations they 
have heard. The hallucinations may be isolated, or several may 
be combined ; they can affect all the senses. 

In the third section are collected the hallucinations that are 
mingled with another error of the senses, to which the name of 
illusion is given. In the first instance, vision occurred without 
an object ; in the second, it is always produced by a real body, 
but which gives a different impression from reality; a man be- 
comes a woman, a piece of wood, a frightful monster. Illusions 
sometimes appear as an epidemic ; and such are not rare in his- 
tory. Each sense may be the seat of the illusion, or all may 
be at once affected. In more than one instance, illusions have 
caused offensive and dangerous acts. 

Hallucinations are above all frequent in madness; the fourth 
section embraces those which are observable in monomania, and 
the other varieties of alienation. The forms of delirium which 
most frequently exhibit this complication are melancholy, deli- 
rium tremens, demonomania, erotomania, nostalgia, etc. A va- 
riety of demonomania formerly played a prominent part; those 
who were attacked by it imagined that they had dealings with de- 
mons, whom they called Incubes and Succubes. To this section 
is also related that which manifests itself by stupidity. Con- 
founded with imbecility, successively classed with several kinds 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

of madness, there is no doubt that this state now and then is 
accompanied by errors in the senses, the existence of which is 
not proved until after the recovery of the patient, and which 
gives- a reason for acts otherwise inexplicable, and only to be 
accounted for by hallucinations. 

The fourth section also includes hallucinations that accompany 
mania; they are often associated with illusions, or alternate with 
them. Their frequency is almost as great as in monomania, but 
it is often more difficult to detect them, because maniacs pass 
from one object to another, are capricious, reply with volubility, 
and pay no attention to the questions addressed to them. There 
is a variety of this mania with lying-in women, which is observ- 
able in many cases. A fact which is more rare, but which we 
have likewise noted, is the persistence of this symptom in the 
last stage of general paralysis. It is probable that hallucina- 
tions exist in some degrees of imbecility. 

Hallucinations which are exhibited in delirium tremens, drunk- 
enness, after the absorption of narcotics and poisons, are the sub- 
jects of the fifth section ; we have thought it proper to separate 
alienation from mental hallucinations, which, linked with the 
action of these substances, do not really show themselves with 
the characters of madness, and we have chosen to speak of them 
under the article Etiology. Delirium tremens, as well as mad- 
ness from inebriety, has a great influence on the conduct ; we 
have examined each under the triple relation of morality, medi- 
cine, and law. 

The sixth section comprises hallucinations connected with cata- 
lepsy, epilepsy, hysteria, hypochondria, etc. 

The hallucinations of nightmare and dreams constitute the 
seventh section. It is evident that nightmare has points of re- 
lation with madness, which are observable in that state. There 
are also dreams, which are closely analogous to hallucinations. 
The physiological study of dreams has presented many interest- 
ing particulars ; it is thus, for instance, that presentiments ap- 
pear to us explainable in most cases by hallucinations. It must 
not, however, be thought that presentiments occur only in dreams, 
and that hallucination always explains them. One case of noc- 
turnal hallucination which is related in this section may throw 
some light on actions frequently inexplicable. Indeed, we have 
proved that nocturnal hallucinations have sometimes existed as 
an epidemic. 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

There is a singular state of the mind known under the term 
ecstasy, the phenomena of which have justly attracted the re- 
searches of observers. The hallucinations which are one of its 
distinctive characteristics have induced us to form it into an eighth 
section. Prolonged concentration of thought on one object is 
terminated by an ecstatic state of the brain, in which the object 
is reproduced, and affects the mind as if it were really perceived 
by the eyes of the body. With this state of the mind may 
be classed the visions of celebrated men. Their hallucinations 
had often no influence on their reason, particularly when they 
were united to the general belief of the time, and when they oc- 
curred during the ecstasy that we have termed physiological. 
Ecstasy has several times been noticed in children; in catalepsy, 
hysteria, overwrought mysticism, and mental alienation. 

Certain special phenomena, such as premonition, clairvoy- 
ance, second-sight, magnetism, and somnambulism, appear to us 
related to ecstasy. The effect of cold has also occasioned this 
nervous state. Ecstasy has been observed in all climates; and 
even lately has appeared among several thousand persons in 
Sweden. The hallucinations observed in these different nervous 
states, and especially in somnambulism, may cause acts involving 
great responsibility. 

The ninth section of the classification comprehends febrile 
complaints, acute, chronic, and other inflammations, and certain 
atmospheric states. Amongst the diseases in which this symptom 
has been most frequent, we will notice acute delirium, which has 
been observed in madhouses, fever, attacks of the brain, paren- 
chymatous inflammations, typhus and typhoid fevers, intermit- 
tent fevers, gout, chlorosis, pellagra, hectic diseases, syncope, 
asphyxia, lethargy, convalescence, etc. Atmospheric influences 
appear to have frequently caused this symptom. 

Finally, in the last section we have exhibited the hallucinations 
and epidemic illusions of which we have elsewhere spoken. 

Such is the circle in which we have collected the facts relative 
to hallucinations which have come under our notice ; large as 
it may be, we believe that the arrangement is such as to enable 
any one to comprehend the whole. 

By the numerous divisions that we have established, it will be 
perceived that hallucinations have different causes. The two 
great moral and physical categories, indicated at the commence- 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

ment of this chapter, are the leading points whence emanate 
a multitude of second causes. As, in mental alienation, domi- 
nant ideas have a great influence on hallucinations, so, during 
the reign of demonology, sorcery, magic, lycanthropy, and vam- 
pirism, men everywhere saw devils, sorcerers, men-wolves, vam- 
pires, etc. With different degrees of civilization, the character 
of hallucination varies. With the Greeks, it was exhibited in 
the form of pans, fawns, naiades. With the Romans, it took the 
aspect of genii. In the Middle Ages, it was manifested in the form 
of angels, saints, and devils. In our time, all possible combinations 
of thought form the basis. When hallucinations are produced by 
physical causes, they may be referred more or less to each of 
these; but, as we have already announced them in several pre- 
ceding sections, we will abstain from repetition. 

Correctly speaking, the preceding paragraph has reference only 
to the secondary causes of hallucinations ; it was necessary to 
consider them on higher grounds, which we have endeavored to 
do in a chapter in which they are regarded in a psychological, 
historical, moral, and religious view. In the early part of this 
chapter, we have shown that the first causes of hallucinations must 
be sought for in the violation of some great principle, in the errone- 
ous direction of ideas, and by consequence in the abnormal produc- 
tion of their perceptible signs. After having entered on more ex- 
tended considerations of the nature of ideas, their division, the 
principal operations of the mind which are brought into play in 
hallucinations, we have shown that these should often be con- 
sidered as almost a normal fact, to which we have already alluded 
in speaking of physiological ecstasy. This mode of treating the 
subject of hallucinations has enabled us to explain how so many 
celebrated men have been thus affected, without on that account 
being insane. The examples of Loyola, Luther, and Joan of Arc 
offer themselves at once as decided demonstrations in favor of 
this opinion. 

Above all, the object of our argument is to prove that these 
noted personages were the personifications of an epoch, an idea ; 
that they fulfilled a useful and necessary mission ; and that their 
hallucinations had nothing in common with those of the present 
time. In this chapter, we have also endeavored to establish a de- 
cided line of demarcation between the apparitions of Holy Writ, 
the hallucinations of profane history, and even those of many 



28 INTRODUCTION. 

Christians. If our judgment does not deceive us, we have present- 
ed the doctrine of hallucinations in a much clearer form than it 
has hitherto been done ; and we willingly believe that all good 
people, who admit the utility of religion, who think that it ought 
to be respected and honored, will thank us for our feeble efforts. 
As to those who rank a belief in Christianity among errors, we 
judge them not ; but if our opinions incur their blame, we prefer 
it, to an approbation gained by that compromise of conscience 
which is unhappily too common. 

This treatise on hallucinations would have been incomplete, 
had we been silent on their physiology. Deeply studied by M. 
Baillarger, in the memoir to which the prize was awarded by the 
Academy of Medicine,* it had partly been described by us in 
our symptomatology ; we have added to this chapter all that 
appeared new in the work of our learned brother. 

We have no reason to anticipate any satisfactory result from 
post-mortem examinations of the insane, with regard to halluci- 
nations ; on this point we agree with the majority of the Faculty, 
who consider that the pathological anatomy of hallucinations has 
yet to be made. If, in this case, alterations were met with, they 
were simple coincidences or effects, and were quite as frequently 
wanting, various, and contradictory. 

Moreover, the progress and duration, diagnosis and prognosis 
of hallucinations have offered considerations on which we have 
dwelt according to their merits. 

The treatment of hallucinations up to the present period has 
been slight. M. Leuret, entering his protest against this error, 
proved that such patients, properly guided, could be cured. He 
has claimed the merit of calling the attention of practitioners 
to this point, and has established rules, which, although much 
disputed, have in several cases proved successful. But in doing 
justice to the merit of this physician, unjustly attacked during 
his life,f we would modify the use of his method, and justify by 
facts the one which we propose, and which appears to us more 
generally applicable. 

Our task would have been imperfectly performed had we 

* Mem. quoted. 

f See the notice that Tve published of him in the Annal. Med. Psych., 
July, 1851. 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

neglected the examination of hallucinations in connection with 
civil and criminal institutions. It has been proved by a multi- 
tude of examples that persons thus affected may, under the 
influence of their false impressions, commit reprehensible, dan- 
gerous, and even criminal acts. This fact, placed beyond doubt 
in the course of this work, has been confirmed by new examples. 
Thence it became necessary to establish signs by which this state 
should be proved, in order that it might not be confounded with 
simulation; we have discovered these signs by inquiry, and 
from the writings and prolonged observation of individuals ; we 
also think that magistrates, as well as doctors, possess the 
means to distinguish criminals laboring under hallucination. 
The question of sequestration, already agitated in speaking of 
treatment, has been newly considered. Useful in many cases, 
especially when the patient is mischievous, in many others it could 
not be recommended without serious inconvenience to the persons 
affected. Finally, we have closed this chapter, the principal 
points of which we have glanced at, by showing that it is possible 
to use a test in the case of hallucinations, provided that they do 
not influence the acts of the individual : but we have also shown 
that it is not thus when the affections are perverted; as would, 
for example, be the belief that a near relative had the form of a 
devil, that he used electricity to poison the food, exhaled infec- 
tious odors, caused torment, etc. 

In composing a work of this nature, the author should seek to 
combine interest with instruction. The favorable reception that 
we have met with induces the belief that these two conditions 
have been fulfilled. 



CHAPTER I. 

DEFINITION AND DIVISION OF HALLUCINATIONS. 

Importance of the study of hallucinations — Definition of authors — Outline of the 
principal classifications — Character of the one presented by the author. 

The psychological history of man does not offer a more curious 
question than that of hallucinations. To see what no eye per- 
ceives, to hear what no ear hears, to be convinced of the reality 
of sensations to which all are incredulous — does not this present 
matter for research full of interest ? 

Hallucination, recorded in the annals of every people, and 
in the lives of the greater number of celebrated persons, and ex- 
isting as a creed through a long vista of ages, is, doubtless, re- 
strained by the progress of science ; but, such as it now appears, 
its study becomes a matter of high import, from the part it plays 
in a host of psychological phenomena, its intervention in many 
diseases, and particularly in mental affections. 

What is hallucination ? How can it be defined ? Is it simple, 
or combined with other morbid conditions ? Such are the differ- 
ent questions with which we shall commence our work. 

Aristotle, Zeno, and Chrysippus, among the ancients, were, in 
a degree, aware of a false perception, and endeavored to distin- 
guish it from true perception ; they described three sorts of hal- 
lucinations — those of the sight, of the hearing, and of smell ; but 
they neither noted all the degrees nor all the conditions of its 
existence. 

The definition of hallucination does not appear to trace to a 
period far back ; Arnold is, we think, the first who gave it 
any completeness of form. "Ideal insanity," said he, "is the 
intellectual state of a person who believes he sees and hears 
what no other person sees or hears ; who imagines he converses 
with spirits, perceives things impalpable to the senses, or that 



32 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

do not exist outwardly such as they appear to him ; or who, 
when he sees external objects in their reality, has false and 
absurd ideas of his own form, and of the palpable qualities of 
objects."* 

One cannot but see in this definition, certainly somewhat long, 
the distinction of hallucinations and illusions, as also errors of 
personality. 

Al. Crichton, who wrote about the same time, defined halluci- 
nation or illusion, as a delusion of mind, in which fancies are mis- 
taken for realities, and real objects become falsely represented, 
without any general derangement of the intellectual faculties.! 

Sauvages, with Felix Plater, called hallucination a false percep- 
tion caused by imperfection of the external senses ; and included, 
under the vague term delirium, that the principle of which is in 
the brain itself. Amongst hallucinations, he placed vertigo, 
double-sight, tingling in the ear, hypochondria, and somnambu- 
lism. Darwin, in his Zoonomia, admits the opinion of the two 
preceding authors. 

By the word hallucination, Ferriar understands all deceitful 
impressions, from the fly that flutters before the eye to the most 
frightful spectre. J 

According to Hibbert, hallucinations are merely ideas and re- 
collections, so vivid as to surpass real impressions. § 

Esquirol, the first in France who gave a precise sense to the 
word hallucination, has applied it to phenomena neither depend- 
ent on a local lesion of the senses, nor on a vicious association of 
ideas, nor on the effect of imagination, but solely on a particular, 
and, as yet, unknown lesion of the brain; he defines hallucination 
as a cerebral or psychical phenomenon, acting independently of 
the senses, and consisting in external sensations, that the patient 
believes he experiences, although no external agent acts mate- 
rially on his senses. In another part of his book, he says: "The 

* Arnold's Observations on the Nature, Kinds, Causes, and Prevention 
of Insanity ; two vols. 8vo., 2d edition, t. 1, p. 55, London, 1806. First 
edition published in 1782. 

f Alex. Crichton, An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Mental 
Derangement, t. 2, p. 342, London, 1798. 

X An Essay towards a Theory of Apparitions, p. 95, London, 1813. 

\ Samuel Hibbert, Sketches of the Philosophy of Apparitions, 2d edi- 
tion, p. 1, London, 1825. 



CLASSIFICATION OF HALLUCINATIONS. 33 

professed sensations of the hallucinated are images, and ideas, 
reproduced by memory, associated by imagination, and personi- 
fied by habit." 

This second definition has been strongly attacked as being 
neither logical nor consonant with facts. We will not bring for- 
ward the criticism to which it has been subjected, but we consider 
it more brilliant than correct. 

M. Fabret, in his Lectures upon Mental Diseases, published in 
the Gazette des Hopitaux for 1850, adopts Esquirol's opinions, 
though with some slight modifications. 

Darwin, and subsequently M. Faville, considered hallucinations 
as a lesion of the organs of sense. On this hypothesis, a false 
perception, always the same, is assumed to exist; but it is im- 
possible to adopt it for the hallucinations that are connected with 
the habitual ideas of the individual, or with those which are 
prevalent at certain historical epochs. 

According to M. Calmeil, hallucinations are ideas that are 
converted into material impressions, and are carried into ac- 
tion on the external senses, although the nervous system of the 
periphery is passive. But this physician goes farther, since he 
admits that the peripheric nervous system may be the starting- 
point for the most varied, and probably the most numerous, 
hallucinations. M. Calmeil combines hallucinations and illusions. 

Mons. Lelut considers hallucinations to be an intermediate 
phenomenon between sensation and conception. This pheno- 
menon he regards as a spontaneous transformation of thought 
into sensations generally external. 

M. Bland has attacked this definition, by remarking that hal- 
lucination cannot be a transformation of thought, because thought, 
immaterial in its nature, has no form, consequently cannot be 
transformed, nor become material like a sensation, viewed by the 
impulse which produces it.* 

Between sensation and conception, says M. Leuret, there ex- 
ists an intermediate phenomenon, that practitioners call halluci- 
nation. Hallucination resembles sensation, inasmuch as, like 
sensation, it gives the idea of a body actually acting on the 
organs. It differs from it, inasmuch as it exists without an ex- 

* Bland, Note pour servir a l'histoire des hallucinations, Revue Medi- 
cate, Juin, 1842- 

3 



34 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ternal object. Like conception, it is creative, but it produces 
images, not ideas; images, however, which are of the same worth 
to the hallucinated as the objects themselves.* 

Again, M. Aubanel, in his excellent treatise on hallucina- 
tions^ looks on this phenomenon as a form or variety of mental 
alienation, in which a man transforms the delirious conceptions 
of his mind into sensations, or, by means of these same con- 
ceptions, perverts real sensations by assimilating them to his de- 
lirious ideas. 

M. Baillarger admits two kinds of hallucination, the one com- 
plete, which are the result of the double action of imagination 
and the senses; these are psycho-sensor ial : the other produced 
only by the involuntary exercise of memory and imagination, 
which are psychical hallucinations. He defined psycho-sensorial 
hallucination as a sensorial perception, independent of all exter- 
nal excitation of the sensuous organs, and having its starting- 
point in the involuntary exercise of memory and imagination. 
Psychical hallucinations may be defined as perceptions purely 
intellectual, having their starting-point in the involuntary exer- 
cise of memory and imagination, and in a less degree than hal- 
lucinations of the former kind — the internal excitation of the 
sensorial apparatus. J 

According to M. Michea, hallucination is the transformation, 
sometimes voluntary, but more frequently involuntary, of me-' 
mory and imagination, either isolated or combined, resembling 
sensorial perception. § Sometimes it is cerebral, and idiopathic; 
sometimes sensorial, peripheric, or symptomatic. 

M. Szalkowski defines hallucination as a cerebral or psychical 
phenomenon perfected independently of the senses, and consist- 
ing in external sensations experienced by the individual, although 
no external agent acts materially on the senses. || 

According to M. Parchappe, the inherence of the illusory 

* Leuret, Fragments psychologique sur la folie, p. 133, Paris, 1834. 

f Aubanel, Essai sur les hallucinations, these, Paris, 1839. 

% Baillarger, Des hallucinations, des causes qui les produisent, et des 
maladies qu'elles caracterisent (Mdmoires de VAcademie de M6decine, t. 12, 
Paris, 1846). 

\ Michea, Du delire des sensations, p. 82, Paris, 1846. 

|| Louis Rufin Szalkowski, Recherche sur les hallucinations au point 
de vue de la psychologie, de l'histoire, et de la medecine legale, p. 8, 1849. 



CLASSIFICATION OF HALLUCINATIONS. 35 

characteristic in the psychical phenomenon, considered as an 
essential condition of the special change of modality which en- 
genders illusions, necessarily excludes from this category of 
symptoms those phenomena which result immediately and ex- 
clusively from the operations of the soul as much as intellectual 
strength. In this opinion, notions and ideas can be true or 
false, and never illusory. Illusory sensations are distinguished 
from other psychical phenomena, inasmuch as they have an 
act of the senses for their condition, and an illusion for their 
effect. 

The illusory sensations are of two orders, objective and sub- 
jective. The essential character of the former is to have a 
sensation created by an external object, and, as a necessary ef- 
fect, to engender an illusion relative to the sensible properties 
of that object. The subjective have for their essential character 
a sensation without a real object, caused by an exterior modifica- 
tion of the organs of the subject, and causing an illusion relative 
to the existence of an external object.* 

Dendy explains hallucination as a past recollection — illusion, 
as a present recollection. f 

For ourselves, building on the symptomatology of hallucina- 
tions and illusions, we will define hallucination as the perception 
of the sensible signs of an idea ; and illusion, a false appreciation 
of real sensations. In considering this phenomenon in a psycho- 
logical point of view, we will explain our opinion, by stating that 
the spiritual character of the idea, or its essence, never forms a 
part of the hallucination, but that the sensible sign forms its 
only foundation. 

The division of hallucinations ought to rest on a previous and 
deep study of their states of complication and simplicity. But 
this method, suitable for classification, would offer serious draw- 
backs to the comprehension of this work; the reader would not 
at once seize on the whole of the plan, his mind would lose itself 
in details, and the result would be a painful impression, which 
would nullify all our efforts. Under this conviction, we will pro- 

* Max Parchappe, Symptomatologie de la folie, Annales Medico-Psy- 
chologiques (see numbers for January and April, 1850, and January, 
1851, p. 268, et seq.). 

f Walter Cooper Dendy, The Philosophy of Mystery, London, 1841. 



36 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ceed to sketch our classification, after having exhibited the most 
generally adopted divisions. 

Esquirol recognizes only cerebral, mental, or idiopathic hallu- 
cinations. M. Calmeil says that in theory we may suppose that 
symptomatic hallucinations exist, and that the peripheric nervous 
system is the starting-point for the most varied and perhaps the 
greatest number of hallucinations. But, whether we lean to the 
theories of Capron, or rest upon those of Meyer, the sensations 
brought by the sentient extremities, which come from the nerves 
of sight, of hearing, of taste, of smell, of external and visceral 
touch, and of the spinal marrow, impress only a shock on the 
brain, and it requires the action of that organ to constitute the 
operations of hallucination. 

M. Leuret divides hallucinations into those which occur dur- 
ing waking hours, and those which take place during sleep, and 
which are ordinarily known as visions. He includes incubus and 
succubus in the hallucinations of sleep. 

M. Aubanel, who makes but one class of hallucinations and 
illusions, has proposed the following division: — 

1. The hallucinated are fully aware of the phenomena they 
experience ; they attribute it themselves to a freak of fancy, to 
a diseased imagination; they are perfectly rational, sometimes 
even manifesting a high development of intellect. 

2. The hallucinated cannot understand that their false im- 
pressions are received through any other medium than their 
senses; they are always careful to keep their actions subordinate 
to the phenomenon which affects them. 

3. The hallucinated believe in the interposition of their senses, 
and in the reality of the external impressions which occur to 
them. These distinctions apply alone to isolated hallucinations. 

In regard to the hallucinations of complex mental alienation, 
M. Aubanel notices a sensorial monomania, in which "the hal- 
lucinated maintain a connected series of ideas, and have none of 
that disorder or incoherence observable in madmen;" and a sen- 
sorial mania, "made up of numerous and various hallucinations, 
sometimes lucid, more frequently confused, each having the 
common characteristic of being insanity in itself — that is to 
say, as incoherent and disordered as are actions and words in 
the frenzy of madness." 

Dr. Paterson, availing himself of the works of Ferriar, Heb- 



CLASSIFICATION OF HALLUCINATIONS. 37 

bert, Abercrombie and his disciples, commences by dividing hal- 
lucinations into two great sections: 1. Those of wakefulness. 
2. Those of dreams. He then proposes a new classification, the 
most complete which has been published in England. It is com- 
posed of seven groups, which comprehend the major part of 
known hallucinations, and one of which admits the existence of 
hallucinations with reason.* 

In common with most of the authors who have preceded him, 
Mr. Paterson combines hallucinations and illusions. 

The classifications of Messrs. Baillarger and Parchappe have 
already been noticed. 

The classification that we are about to introduce exhibits hal- 
lucinations in a much more extensive view. TTe recognize the 
hallucinations of illusions, although they constantly approximate, 
because their origin differs entirely; but, after having charac- 
terized their distinctions, we shall point out, in describing hallu- 
cinations, what is important to be known of illusions, as it is im- 
possible, in many circumstances, that these two forms of mental 
aberration should be isolated. The same remark applies to idio- 
pathic and symptomatic hallucinations; however useful in a sci- 
entific point of view, it cannot be rigorously maintained in a 
history of hallucinations. 

These distinctions established, we shall proceed to divide hallu- 
cinations into ten sections, shown in the following table, but which, 
from the importance of many of them, are also subdivided: — 

Section I. Hallucinations consistent with reason. 

of sight ; 



1. Corrected by un- 

derstanding. 

2. Not corrected by 
understanding. 



Comprising 
hallucinations 



of hearing ; 

of smell ; 

of taste; 

of touch ; 

of all the senses. f 



Section II. Simple hallucinations, in themselves having the cha- 
racteristic of insanity, without being complicated with mono- 
mania, mania, madness, etc. 

* Paterson, Memoires sur plusieurs cas d'hallucinations (Annal. Me- 
dico-Psychol., 1843). 

f This subdivision applies to other sections. 



3$ ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Section III. Hallucinations in their connection with illusions. 
Section IV. Compound hallucinations, having in themselves 
the characteristic of insanity, existing, 

1. With monomania ; 

2. With stupidity ; 

3. With mania ; 

4. With madness ; 

5. With imbecility. 

Section V. Hallucinations resulting from delirium tremens, in- 
toxication, and narcotic substances, and venoms. 

Section "VI. Hallucinations most frequent in nervous diseases, 
but without the accessories of monomania, mania, and madness. 

1. With catalepsy ; 

2. With epilepsy; 

3. With hysteria ; 

4. With hypochondria ; 

5. With rage. 

Section VII. Hallucinations with nightmare and dreams. 

Section VIII. Hallucinations with ecstasies. 

Section IX. Hallucinations with febrile, inflammatory, and acute 

diseases, chronic and other affections, with certain states of the 

atmosphere; namely, 

1. With acute diseases; 

2. With fever ; 

3. With diseases of the brain ; 

4. With parenchymatous inflammations ; 

5. With typhoid fever; 

6. With intermittent fever ; 

7. With gout, chlorosis, pellagra, etc. ; 

8. With the last stages of hectic diseases ; 

9. With syncope, asphyxia, lethargy, convalescence, 

etc. ; 
10. With atmospheric influences, etc. 
Section X. Epidemic hallucinations.* 

As the subdivision we have presented appears to us to compre- 

* Epidemic hallucinations and illusions being noticed in the chapters 
with which they have more particular connection, we shall not devote any 
special article to them. 



CLASSIFICATION OF HALLUCINATIONS. 39 

hend all known hallucinations, it is evident that, when we shall 
have completed our examination, we shall have all the materials 
by whose aid we can study their symptoms, their causes, their 
lesions, their prognosis, their diagnosis, and their treatment. 
To make choice of the most authentic facts, the most appropriate 
for establishing the doctrine of hallucinations ; to avoid crowding 
them together, the fault of so many modern authors ; to refer 
to our own experience, whilst we glean from that of the learned 
both of our own and foreign countries — such are the rules by 
which we propose to be guided in our researches on a subject 
which bears relation to medicine, philosophy, history, morals, 
and religion, and which is, without doubt, the most interesting in 
mental pathology. 



CHAPTER II. 

HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH KEASON. 

Influence of reverie in the production of hallucinations — Distinctions to be esta- 
blished — On the reverie of Orientals — Belief in the supernatural — 1, Recognized, 
spontaneous, ephemeral, and prolonged hallucinations ; 2. Unrecognized hallu- 
cinations — Causes of hallucinations — Observations borrowed from historical 
personages — Their importance — Recapitulation. 

The proposition in this book which is most disputed is that of 
hallucinations as consistent with reason. In order to bring for- 
ward all the evidence of which we think it susceptible, we must 
penetrate into the region of psychological facts, analyze the 
different states in which hallucination is normally produced, and 
illustrate argument by well-selected facts. Before entering on 
these researches, it will be well to notice an error inseparable 
from the subject, and into which it is usual to fall: I mean the 
analogies of reason and lunacy.* So long as a proper distance 
from the invisible limits of these two worlds is maintained, illu- 
sion is impossible ; but the frontier once invaded, confusion com- 
mences, and it becomes very difficult to distinguish true from 
erroneous ideas, reality from falsehood. 

Let us take an example : The idea of God is universal ; his 
justice is an attribute that cannot be separated from his essence ; 
if, however, the idea of justice should touch the borders of 
the fatal circle, it assumes the appearance of inflexible severity, 
terror, chastisement, and damnation, and too often leads to sui- 
cide. There is no idea, which is drawn into this orbit, but under- 
goes this terrible metamorphosis. The same phenomenon takes 
place with images. In many cases visible to the senses, but 

* F. Lelut, Le Demon de Socrate, Recherches des Analogies de la Folie 
et de la Raison, one vol. in 8vo. p. 321, Paris, 1836. — Moreau, Un chapitre 
oublie" de la Pathologie Mentale, Paris, 1830. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 41 

recognized as memories, reminiscences, creations — sometimes 
accepted as the effect of supernatural power — their usual charac- 
ter is not to cause any disturbance of the intellect, nor exercise 
any unhappy influence on the actions of life. It is not thus 
when the image presents an actual form to the mind which 
slavishly obeys it ; the hallucination passes from a physiological 
to a pathological condition, and thence leads to insanity. 

The existence of images, or rather of physiological hallucina- 
tions,* is placed beyond all doubt by thousands of physical and 
moral facts. Indeed, they may be caused by optical or acoustic 
illusion. 

Brewster, in his Letters on Natural Magicrf has related an ex- 
periment by Newton, which proves that any one can, at his plea- 
sure, create hallucinations. That great philosopher, after having 
attracted the sun to a mirror, directed his glance by chance to 
an obscure part of the room ; he was much surprised to see the 
solar spectrum reproduced, and exhibited by degrees, with all the 
colors and brilliancy of the sun itself. The hallucination oc- 
curred as frequently as he turned his eyes towards the dark 
spot.J 

Paterson remarks that the same phenomenon takes place when 
a casement is highly illuminated, and the wall afterwards looked 
at ; the image of the casement, with its squares and its bars, is 
quickly developed to your gaze.§ To these two facts may be 
added the circumstance that individuals who concentrate their 
ideas on a scene, or a mountain which they may have noticed in 
their travels, find it reproduced with extreme fidelity. 

* These remarks apply equally to illusions. 

f Sir David Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic, p. 32, London, 1832. 

% I would remark now, and once for all, that all observations borrowed 
from foreign authors have been translated by myself. Many physicians 
who have written on hallucinations have given certain quotations which 
they believed to be literally taken from works, more or less known, whilst 
I took the trouble to translate the original text. Experience at my own 
cost, and errors committed by those who quote at second and third hand, 
have long since given me the habit of applying at once to the fountain- 
head. 

| Paterson, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, No. cliv., January, 
1843. — Memoires sur plusieurs cas d'hallucinations, avec des observations 
sur les phenomenes et les etats morbides dans lesquels elles ont lieu, trans- 
lated by A. Brierre de Boismont, Annales Medico-Psycho., 1, 3, 1834. 



42 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

There is a state of mind which every one has experienced, and 
which shows with what facility hallucination can be produced : I 
speak of reverie. A dear friend, M. Alfred de Vigny, writes 
thus on the subject: "There are two kinds of reverie — that of 
weak minds, and that of deep thinkers. Yes, reverie leads to a 
wilderness of ideas in the poor souls who are in love with thought, 
and desire it, without being able to obtain it, or to find in it com- 
plete and solid strength. Certainly it is a dangerous labyrinth 
to those who have neither a clear sight nor a firm foot to dis- 
cover their road. But reverie is the prelude to great creations 
in minds like that of St. Jerome, who came forth from the desert 
stronger than when he entered it, and reappeared, armed and 
mailed with his grand Christian books. With him, with St. John 
Chrysostom, with Descartes, with Malebranche, with Dante, with 
Milton, with Spinosa, reverie is force, power, health, and often 
even longevity. With them solitude is holy." 

Meister likewise describes this creative power of reverie : 
"Nothing," says he, "can throw a clearer light on the habitual 
working of our faculty of thinking than to observe it by turns in 
three very different states — the state of waking, that of sleep, 
and that middle state between waking and sleeping, in which the 
external senses are rather in a state of calm and inaction than 
of actual torpidity; in which the activity of the internal senses 
becomes, as it were, isolated, and it is doubtful whether we dream 
or meditate. This state usually follows or precedes the repose 
of sleep ; it is also sometimes the result of prolonged meditation 
on one object, or on one idea, more particularly in the silence 
of nature, in the obscurity of the forest, or in the midst of the 
shadows of night. Then a single impression, a single image, 
appears sometimes to remain long in the thought, and hold it, as 
it were, in a state of siege; then our understanding acts only by 
intuition. Entire scenes, pictures, complete or in part, succeed 
to the interior sense, now slowly, now with rapidity. We think 
we see, and truly see, that which we have never seen. Indeed, 
these are real phantoms that our imagination, by its sole power, 
gathers around us, happy or unhappy beneath the charm of its 
sorcery." 

" I am persuaded that devotees, lovers, prophets, Illuminati, 
and Swedenborgians, owe all the wonders of their presentiments, 
their visions, their prophecies, their conversations with celestial 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 43 

intelligences, their journeys in heaven, and in hell, to the illusions 
of which this state of being renders us susceptible ; in a word, all 
the extravagance and superstition of their contagious reveries. 
/But I do not hesitate, also, to say that it is probably in this 
state that men of genius have conceived the most original beau- 
ties of their works ; that in it the geometrician has solved the 
problem that had long baffled him ; the metaphysician has seen 
the first glimpse of the most ingenious of his systems ; the poet, 
his most beautiful verse ; the musician, the most expressive and 
most brilliant of his passages; the statesman, the decisive expe- 
dient that all the light of his experience had not discovered with 
his severest calculations ; the general, the expansive and rapid 
coup d'oeil that fixes the fate of a battle and insures victory." 

We may here notice the influence of being on the confines be- 
tween the true and the fanciful ; towards whichever side we 
lean, reverie is the great source of great actions or rash enter- 
prises. 

Carried away by these waking dreams, these castles in the 
air, so familiar to us, and which substitute such sweet illusions 
for the sad realities of life, oar thoughts are illuminated, our idle 
fancies become embodied, and we see before us, under sensible 
forms, all the objects of our wishes. Who, for example, has not 
a hundred times contemplated the figure of his beloved; or, if 
he be enamored of glory, has not distinctly heard the sound of 
clarions, and the cries of the combatants ? 

All who have lived in the East, or written of that glorious 
country, have spoken of the powerful effect of the climate on the 
imagination of the inhabitants. It is averred that there exist 
substances in that part of the world that throw the mind into ec- 
stasies. "For myself," says M. Paul de Molenes, " I have always 
thought that the heaven under which the Arab folds and unfolds 
his tent is the most effectual source of reverie in which the soul 
can be steeped. The Orientals do not, like ourselves, know the 
debasing and loquacious intoxication of wine, of brandy, of beer, 
and of all those liquors that disfigure the features, disorder the 
mind, and imprint extravagance on the tongue ; but they possess 
the secret of that noble and silent intoxication of heaven, of soli- 
tude, space, and of those divine things which give an august cha- 
racter to the countenance, and illumine thought with the trans- 
parencies of vision, and place a sacred seal on the lips, broken at 



\ 



44 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

rare intervals by a few solemn words. It is of this intoxication, 
which those who have once indulged in never renounce, that the 
recital of Cambi (Sid-el- Adj-Mohammed, member of the tribe of 
Chambas) is full. Amongst the mysterious facts that I amused 
myself in gathering from the curious details of this peregrination, 
is one that appeared to me striking. Chambi relates that, during 
one of the numerous halts of his journey, a gentle and frater- 
nal exaltation seized him and all his companions. A sort of in- 
visible mirage exhibited to the whole caravan the image of their 
absent country, and threw into inexpressible tenderness the weary 
souls of these pilgrims. What heavenly influence spread over all 
these hearts the same emotion, and animated all these minds with 
the same thoughts, at the same moment ? It is a secret of God, 
and of the desert. But I love the country, and I love the book in 
which such secrets are offered to our meditation."* 

Such is likewise the opinion of M. Combes the younger : "The 
Oriental," he remarks, "is indolent and voluptuous. The keff 
is as essential to his existence as the bread which he eats, or the 
clothes that cover him. An Arab, be he rich or poor, who can- 
not indulge during the day in his Jceff, is a most unhappy man. 
But, you inquire, what is this keff? The word has no corre- 
sponding word in our language; and the Italians, in translating it 
as ' far niente' (complete idleness), give but a very imperfect idea 
of its real significance. The keff is a reverie, happiness in repose; 
it is a kind of beatitude in which the individual is plunged, and 
from which he would wish never to be aroused. The Orientals 
rarely think; it is too fatiguing. During the keff, the hours of 
which are regulated, and of which no motive would induce them 
voluntarily to deprive themselves, their imagination, capricious 
and wandering, is without end, and without object ; it loves to be 
lost in a world of fancy, and to feast on vain chimeras. In these 
ecstatic hours, the Orientals are all poets, but egotists who produce 
nothing, "f 

It is to this power of imagination that we owe those wonderful 
tales which are the charm of the Orientals. It is this which 
peoples the bowels of the earth with genii, magicians, and 
palaces filled with treasure, and fancies in every European, who 

* Des ouvrages du General Daumas (Article de M. Paul de Molenes, 
Journal des Dtbats, du 4 Mars, 1851). 
f Voyage eu Egypt et en Nubie. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH BEASON. 45 

excavates ruins to find the remains of antiquity, a magician 
invoking the guardian genii of the treasures, in order to possess 
himself of them. 

The reverie, then, is eminently favorable to the production of 
physiological hallucinations ; and it is easy to deduce from thence, 
how, with deep thinkers, it may be the cause of admirable chef 8- 
oVoeuvres. 

Hence poets, painters, sculptors, whom genius has touched 
with his wing, have all perceived before them the form of the 
ideal of their dreams ; their biographies prove that this form was 
visible to the eyes of their minds (like the ghost of Banquo in 
Macbeth), and often even to their bodily eyes. Moreover, we do 
not believe that there are immortal creations without this mate- 
rialization of the ideal. It is the characteristic sign of the 
artists of antiquity, and of those of the Middle Ages ; and if few 
can now equal them, it is because that profound belief which 
elevated the soul to the highest degree of enthusiasm has almost 
entirely ceased amongst enlightened people, who, on the contrary, 
profess to believe nothing. 

Having reserved hallucinations in relation to psychology for 
a special chapter, we will not enter on the examination of dreams, 
of certain states of infancy, of authentic phenomena of magnet- 
ism and somnambulism, etc. ; our object here is simply to prove 
that hallucination is consistent with reason. The two classes 
that we have established are distinguished one from the other, by 
the excess and the intensity of the phenomenon. In a reasona- 
ble state, the image may preserve the vividness of the original, 
but it is in general recognized as a creation of the imagination, 
and is of short duration ; in the delirious state, on the contrary, 
the brain paints its pictures with more force than they possess in 
reality ; these are detached from self, take an existence inde- 
pendent of the individual, and disturb the mental faculties. 

The psychological study of man, then, proves that hallucina- 
tion can exist without disordering the mind. We will describe 
several curious cases in support of this doctrine, and divide them 
into two sections : 1. Hallucinations corrected by the under- 
standing; 2. Hallucinations not corrected by the understanding: 
perfect sanity in both cases. 

The hallucinations of the first section may continue for a 
length of time. In certain cases, they are conjured up at will. 



46 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Subsection I. — Hallucinations consistent with reason, cor- 
rected by the understanding. 

Case I. "A painter who inherited much of the patronage of 
the celebrated Sir Joshua Reynolds, and believed himself to 
possess a talent superior to his, was so fully engaged, that he told 
me," said Wigan, "he had painted three hundred large and small 
portraits in one year. The fact appeared physically impossible ; 
but the secret of his rapidity and his astonishing success was 
this ; he required but one sitting of his model. I watched him 
paint a portrait in miniature in eight hours, of a gentleman whom 
I well knew; it was carefully done, and the resemblance was 
perfect. I begged him to detail to me his method of procedure, 
and he related what follows : i When a sitter came, I looked atten- 
tively on him for half an hour, sketching from time to time on 
the canvas. I did not require a longer sitting. I removed the 
canvas, and passed to another person. When I wished to con- 
tinue the first portrait, I recalled the man to my mind; I placed 
him on the chair, where I perceived him as distinctly as if he 
were really there; and I may add, in form and color more 
decided and brilliant. I looked from time to time at the imagi- 
nary figure, and went on painting ; occasionally stopping to 
examine the posture exactly as though the original were before 
me ; whenever I looked towards the chair, I saw the man. 

" 'This method made me very popular, and as I always caught 
the resemblance, the sitters were delighted that I spared them 
the annoying sittings of other painters. In this way I laid by 
much money for myself and my children. 

" ' By degrees I began to lose all distinction between the imagi- 
nary and the real figure, and I sometimes insisted to my sitters 
that they had sat the day before. Finally, I was persuaded that 
it was so, and then all became confusion. I recollect nothing 
more. I lost my reason, and remained for thirty years in an 
asylum. With the exception of the last six months of my con- 
finement, I recollect nothing ; it however appears to me, that 
when I hear persons speak of their visit to the establishment, I 
have a faint recollection of them, but I will not dwell on this 
subject.' 

"What is most surprising is that when this artist reassumed 
his pencil, after the lapse of thirty years, he painted almost as 
well as when madness obliged him to renounce his art. His 
imagination was still very vivid, as was proved by the portrait 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 47 

which I saw him take, for which he only required two sittings of 
half an hour each, the last of which was to look at the dress and 
the eyebrows, which his memory had not retained. As it was 
feared that the excitement, consequent on this work, would be 
productive of unhappy results, he was persuaded to renounce 
the practice of his art. He died shortly afterwards."* 

This power of invoking shadows, and peopling solitudes, may 
be carried so far as to transform individuals present into phan- 
toms. 

Case II. Hyacinth Langlois, a celebrated artist of the city 
of Rouen, intimately acquainted with Talma, related that this 
great artist had confided to him the fact that, when he trod the 
stage, he could, by the force of his will, make all the brilliant 
dresses of his numerous audience disappear, and substitute 
skeletons for the living characters. When his imagination had 
thus filled the theatre with these singular spectators, his emo- 
tions were such as to give to his play a force which produced the 
most striking effects. 

Since hallucination can in such a case be invoked at will, it is 
easy to conceive that it may exhibit itself instantaneously. 

Case III. Bottex relates that a man employed in a brew- 
house in Strasburg, having gone to Saint Etienne, inhabited the 
latter town for about two months, when he one night heard 
something walk round his bed, and pass over the coverlet ; the 
next day, at the same hour, the same noise ; but then he dis- 
tinctly heard these words: "Ah! I have found you, then!" He 
recognized the voice of a young person whom he had left at 
Strasburg. 

Thenceforward, the voice followed him everywhere ; asked for 
money, spoke of marriage, and menaced him with the devil if he 
did not comply with her wishes ; in fact, she so tormented him 
that he could neither work nor sleep, so he resolved to enter a 
hospital at Lyons. 

He did not see the woman who spoke to him, but distinctly 
heard her voice ; and no hour passed that she did not talk to 
him. When requested to listen to her, he leaned his head to 
the left, and immediately heard her ; when he repeated word for 
word what she said. 

* A. L. "Wigan, M. D., A New View of Insanity, the Duality of the Mind, 
p. 123, London, 1844. 



48 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

This man was perfectly sane ; he knew perfectly well that the 
woman whose voice he heard was not near him. " She must," 
said he, laughing, " have made a compact with the devil." He 
could not explain what he experienced otherwise ; but he did 
not hold on to the idea, knowing it to be absurd. By degrees, 
the voice addressed him more rarely ; finally, he no longer heard 
her, and went out cured at the end of a month. 

Case IV. A lady about sixty years of age, of extremely ner- 
vous susceptibility, was from time to time affected with singular 
visions. Suddenly she would see a robber enter her chamber, 
and conceal himself under her bed; she was instantly seized 
with violent palpitations of the heart, and universal trembling. 
She was, nevertheless, perfectly aware of the falsity of these 
impressions, and her reason made great efforts to dissipate the 
fears which they awoke in her mind. 

Satisfied that no person could have entered her room, the lady 
resisted the impulse which led her to open the windows and call 
for assistance ; after a struggle of some minutes, reason finally 
triumphed, and she was restored to calmness ; she would then 
approach the bed, and examine it without fear and with great 
satisfaction. " I frequently witnessed," says Mathey, " the cour- 
ageous efforts of the lady to free herself from the fantastic ideas 
of all kinds that beset her." 

Hallucination, although understood and appreciated as such, 
by the person under its influence, may, by its frequency and 
duration, produce so unhappy an effect on the mind as to cause 
death. 

Case V. "I knew," said Wigan, "a very intelligent and 
amiable man, who had the power of placing before him his own 
image ; he often laughed heartily at the sight of his resemblance, 
which also always appeared laughing. For a length of time 
this illusion was a subject of amusement and pleasantry ; but the 
result was deplorable. By degrees he became persuaded that 
he was haunted by his double. This other disputed obstinately 
with him, and to his great mortification, occasionally confuted 
him, which was humiliating, inasmuch as he had a great opinion 
of his own judgment. This gentleman, although eccentric, was 
never subjected to restraint or confinement. Finally, wearied 
out, he resolved not to enter on another year, paid all his debts, 
wrapped in separate papers the amount of the week's expenses, 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 49 

and awaited, pistol in hand, the night of the 31st of December. 
At the moment when the clock struck twelve, he blew out his 
brains." 

Case VI. We owe to a very eminent physician of acknowledged 
reputation, and intimate with Sir Walter Scott, the recital of a 
fact that occurred to a well-known personage, which is, without 
contradiction, one of the most curious examples that can be 
offered in the history of hallucination. The physician was, by 
chance, called on to attend a man, now long deceased, who, 
during his life, filled an important office in a particular depart- 
ment of justice. His functions made him frequently an arbiter 
of the interests of others ; his conduct was therefore open to 
public observation, and for a series of years he enjoyed a repu- 
tation for uncommon firmness, good sense, and integrity. 

At the time when the physician visited him, he kept his room, 
sometimes his bed, and yet he continued now and then to engage 
in the duties of his office ; his mind displayed its usual force 
and habitual energy in directing the business which devolved 
on him. A superficial observer would not have noticed anything 
indicative of weakness or oppression of mind. The external 
symptoms announced no acute or alarming illness ; but the slow- 
ness of his pulse, the failure of his appetite, a painful digestion, 
and an unceasing sadness, appeared to have their source in some 
cause which the invalid was resolved to conceal. 

The gloomy air of the unhappy man, the embarrassment which 
he could not disguise, the constraint with which he replied briefly 
to the questions of the physician, induced the latter to apply to 
his family, who could not give him any satisfactory information. 

The physician then had recourse to arguments calculated to 
make a strong impression on the mind of the patient. He 
pointed out the folly of devoting himself to a slow death rather 
than communicate the secret of the grief which was dragging 
him to the grave. Above all, he represented the injury he was 
inflicting on his own reputation, by creating a suspicion that the 
cause of his affliction, and the consequences resulting, were of too 
disgraceful and criminal a character to be owned ; and added, 
that he would bequeath to his family a suspected and dishonored 
name, and leave a memory to which would be attached the idea 
of some crime, which he dared not own, even in his dying hour. 
This latter argument made more impression than any which had 
4 



50 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

been previously started, and lie expressed a desire to unbosom 
himself frankly to the doctor. They were left together, the 
door of the sick man's room was carefully closed, and he began 
his confession in the following manner : — 

" You cannot, my dear friend, be more convinced than myself 
of the death that threatens me; but you cannot comprehend the 
nature of the disease, nor the manner in which it acts upon me ; 
and even if you could, I doubt if either your zeal or your talents 
could cure me." "It is possible," replied the physician, "that 
my talents would not be equal to the desire I have to be useful 
to you, but medical science has many resources, which only those 
who have studied, can appreciate. However, unless you clearly de- 
scribe your symptoms, it is impossible to say whether it is in my 
power, or in that of medicine to relieve you." " I assure you," 
replied the patient, " that my situation is not unique, for there 
is a similar example in the celebrated romance of Le Sage. 
Without doubt, you remember by what disease the Duke of 
Olivares died ? He was overcome by the idea that he was fol- 
lowed by an apparition, in whose existence he did not believe ; 
and he died because the presence of this vision conquered his 
strength, and broke his heart. Well, my dear doctor, mine is a 
similar case ; and the vision that persecutes me is so painful and 
so frightful, that my reason is quite inadequate to combat the 
effects of a frenzied imagination, and I feel that I shall die, the 
victim of an imaginary malady." 

The physician attentively listened to the recital, and judi- 
ciously abstained from any contradiction ; he contented himself 
with asking for more circumstantial details of the nature of the 
apparition that persecuted him, and of the manner in which so 
singular an affection had seized on his imagination, which, it 
would appear, a very moderate exercise of understanding would 
have succeeded in destroying. The patient replied that the 
attack had been gradual, and that, in the commencement, it was 
neither terrible nor very unpleasant ; and the progress of his suf- 
ferings was as follows : — 

"My visions," said he, "began two or three years ago. I was 
then annoyed by the presence of a great cat, which came and 
disappeared I knew not how; but I did not continue long in 
doubt, for I perceived that this domestic animal was the result 
of a vision produced by a derangement in the organs of sight, or 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 51 

of the imagination. However, I have not the same antipathy to 
these animals as that brave mountain-chief, now dead, whose face 
turned all the colors of his plaid, if in a room with a cat, even 
though he did not see it. On the contrary, I rather like them, and 
I endured the presence of my imaginary companion with a degree 
of patience that almost amounted to indifference. But, at the end 
of a few months, the cat disappeared, and was succeeded by a 
phantom of a higher grade, and whose exterior was at least more 
imposing. It was no other than a gentleman-usher, dressed as 
though he were in the service of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 
or of a great functionary of the church, or of any other person 
of rank or dignity. 

"This character, in a court-dress, with bag wig, a sword by his 
side, a vest worked in tambour, and a chapeau-bras, glided by 
my side like the shade of Beau Nash. Whether in my own house, 
or elsewhere, he mounted the stairs before me, as if to announce 
me. Sometimes he mixed in with the company, although it was 
evident that no one remarked his presence, and that I alone 
witnessed the chimerical honors he paid me. This caprice of 
imagination did not make a strong impression on me; but it 
raised a question as to the nature of the disease, and I began 
to fear the effect it might have on my senses. This apparition 
also had its term. After a few months, my gentleman-usher was no 
more seen, but was replaced by a phantom horrible to the sight, 
and distressing to the mind — a skeleton. Alone, or in society," 
added the unfortunate man, "this apparition never leaves me. 
It is in vain that I repeat to myself that it has no reality, that 
it is but an illusion caused by the derangement of my sight, or a 
disordered imagination. Of what use are such reflections, when 
the presage and the emblem of death is constantly before my 
eyes ? when I see myself, although only in imagination, forever 
the companion of a phantom representing the gloomy inhabitant 
of the tomb, whilst I am still upon earth? Neither science, 
philosophy, nor even religion has a remedy for such a disease; 
and I too truly feel that I shall die this cruel death, although I 
have no faith in the reality of the spectre that is always pre- 
sent." 

The physician was pained to see how deeply this vision was 
rooted in the mind of the invalid, who was then in bed. He 
adroitly pressed him with questions as to the apparition; knowing 



52 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

him to be a sensible man, he hoped to make him fall into contra- 
dictions, which would put his judgment, to all appearance clear, 
in a state fitted to combat successfully the disordered imagina- 
tion, which was producing such fatal effects. "It would appear, 
then," said he, "that this skeleton is ever before you?" "It 
is my hapless destiny to see it always," replied the sick man. 
"In this case," continued the doctor, "you see it now." "Yes." 
"In what part of the room does it appear to you?" "At the 
foot of my bed ; when the curtains are a little open, it places 
itself between them, and fills the opening." "You say that you 
understand it to be only an illusion? — In dreams we are fre- 
quently aware that the apparition which freezes us with fear is 
false ; but we cannot, nevertheless, overcome the terror that op- 
presses us. Have you firmness enough to be positively con- 
vinced? Can you rise, and take the place which the spectre 
appears to occupy, in order to assure yourself that it is a real 
illusion?" The poor man sighed, and shook his head. "Well, 
then," said the doctor, "we will try another plan." He quitted 
the chair on which he had been seated at the head of the bed, 
and, placing himself between the open curtains, in the spot 
pointed out as being occupied by the apparition, he inquired if 
the skeleton was yet visible. "Much less, because you are be- 
tween it and me, but I see the skull over your shoulder." 

It is said that, in spite of his philosophy, the learned doctor 
shuddered at a reply so distinctly announcing that the ideal 
spectre was behind him. He had recourse to other experiments, 
and employed various methods of cure, but in vain. The pa- 
tient became more and more dejected, and died a victim to the 
agony in which his latter years had been passed. 

Here is an unexceptionable proof of the power the imagina- 
tion has on the body, even when the fantastic terrors it occa- 
sions cannot destroy the judgment of the unfortunate being who 
suffers them. The patient, in this case, perished, the victim 
of a hallucination ; and the details of this singular history being 
kept secret, his death and disease did not injure the well-merited 
reputation for prudence and acuteness which he had enjoyed 
during the whole course of his life.* 

In many cases, hallucination attaches itself to a weakly con- 

* Walter Scott, History of Demonology and Witchcraft. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 53 

stitution. Bonnet, and La Place in his JEssai PhilosopMque sur 
les Probabilites (pp. 224-226), have mentioned a fact of this 
nature relating to a maternal grandfather of the former of these 
physicians.* 

One of the most interesting narratives of this character is 
that which was published a few years since by the bookseller 
Nicolai, of Berlin: — 

Case VII. " During the latter six months of the year 1790," 
that academician relates, "I had endured griefs that most deeply 
affected me. Dr. Selle, who was accustomed to bleed me twice 
a year, had deemed it advisable to do so but once. On the 24th 
of February, 1791, after a sharp altercation, I suddenly perceived, 
at the distance of ten paces, a dead body ; I inquired of my wife 
if she did not see it ; my question alarmed her much, and she 
hastened to send for a doctor ; the apparition lasted eight min- 
utes. At four in the afternoon, the same vision reappeared ; I 
was then alone ; much disturbed by it, I went to my wife's apart- 
ment ; the vision followed me. At six, I perceived several fig- 
ures that had no connection with the others. 

" When the first alarm had subsided, I watched the phantoms, 
taking them for what they really were, the results of an indispo- 
sition. Full of this idea, I carefully examined them, endeavor- 
ing to trace by what association of ideas these forms were pre- 
sented to my imagination ; I could not, however, connect them 
with my occupations, my thoughts, or my works. On the 
following day, the figure of the corpse disappeared, but was 
replaced by a great many other figures representing sometimes 
friends, but more generally strangers. None of my intimate 
friends were amongst these apparitions, which were almost ex- 
clusively composed of individuals inhabiting places more or less 
distant. I attempted to produce at will persons of my acquaint- 
ance by an intense objectivity of their persons ; but although I 
could see two or three of them distinctly in my mind, I could 
not succeed in making exterior the interior perception, although 
I had before seen them in that manner involuntarily, and though 
I saw them afresh when not thinking of them. The disposition 
of my mind prevented me from confounding those false appear- 
ances with reality. 

* Bonnet, Essai analjtique sur PAme, ch. xxiii. p. 426. 



54 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

" These visions were as clear and distinct in solitude as in 
company, by day as by night, in the street as in the house ; they 
were only less frequent at the houses of others ; when I closed 
my eyes, they sometimes disappeared, although there were cases 
in which they were visible ; but so soon as I opened them, they 
reappeared immediately. In general, these figures, which were 
of both sexes, appeared to pay but little attention to each other, 
and walked about with a busy air, as though in a market ; occa- 
sionally, however, they appeared to hold intercourse together. At 
different times, I saw men on horseback with dogs and horses. 
There was nothing remarkable either in their looks, shapes, or 
in their dress ; only they appeared rather paler than in a natu- 
ral state. 

"About four weeks afterwards, the number of these apparitions 
increased; I began to hear them speak; sometimes they conversed 
together, but more generally addressed their conversation to me, 
which was brief and agreeable. At different times, I considered 
them as tender friends who sought to soften my griefs. 

" Although at this period I was well both in body and mind, 
and these spectres had become so familiar as not to cause me the 
slightest uneasiness, I nevertheless endeavored to dispel them by 
suitable remedies. It was resolved that an application of leeches 
should be made, which was accordingly done on the 20th of April, 
1791, at 11 A. M. The surgeon was alone with me ; during the 
operation, my chamber was filled with human figures of all kinds. 
This hallucination continued uninterruptedly until half after four, 
at which time digestion commenced. I then observed that the 
movement of these phantoms became slower. They shortly 
began to grow paler, and at seven o'clock had become perfectly 
white. Their movements were rather more rapid, although their 
forms were as distinct as before. By degrees they became more 
misty, and appeared to melt into air, although some were still 
apparent for a considerable length of time. By eight the room 
was entirely cleared of these fantastic visitors. Since then, I 
have several times thought that the visions were about to return, 
but they have not."* 

* John Ferriar, An Essay towards a Theory of Apparitions, p. 40, 
London, 1813. — Memoir on the Appearance of Spectres or Phantoms occa- 
sioned by Disease, with Psychological Kemarks. Read by Nicolai to the 
Royal Society of Berlin, on the 28th of February, 1799. The translation 
of this paper is given in Nicholson's Journal, vol. vi. p. 161. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH KEASON. 55 

We cannot too strongly draw attention to the physiology of 
these hallucinations of sight and hearing, experienced by a man 
who perfectly analyzed his feelings, and who was careful to 
remark that this astonishing disorder of the mind could be alone 
explained by the influence of grief, and by a disturbance in the 
cerebral circulation consequent on it. 

Case VIII. "On the 26th of December, 1830," says Sir D. 
Brewster,* "Mrs. A. was seated near the fire in her parlor, and 
was about going up stairs to dress, when she heard the voice of 
her husband, who called her by name, and said, ' Come here, come 
here !' Imagining that he was at the door, she desired some one 
to open it, when she was astonished to find no one there. On her 
return into the parlor, she heard the voice a second and a third 
time. It was plaintive, and slightly impatient. Mrs. A. answered 
aloud: 'Where are you? I do not know where you are.' Not 
receiving any reply, the lady went back to her room. 

" Mr. A. returned in about half an hour, when his wife, who 
was as yet undeceived, inquired why he had called her several 
times, and where he was. But she was much surprised to hear 
that he had not been in the house." 

Brewster adds that Mrs. A. had suffered much for six weeks 
with a cold, that weakened her exceedingly. Her stomach was 
naturally delicate, and her nervous system very impressible ; 
during sleep she spoke rapidly, and recited long poems. This 
lady had many other hallucinations, which the English author has 
detailed; but, from their commencement, she perfectly under- 
stood their nature, and, together with her husband, studied them, 
in connection with the circumstances that accompanied them, and 
her particular state of health. 

Case IX. " When I was at school," says Mr. H., " I formed a 
close intimacy with a youth, whom I shall call D. The miscon- 
duct of his father brought the family to ruin, and they fell into 
the depths of misery. For many years I lost sight of the poor 
fellow, who had been sent abroad in order to be more easily got 
rid of. At length I heard that he had returned in a deep decline, 
of which, in three months after, he died. I was called in to 
examine the body, and it may be easily imagined how many sad 
reflections such a sight awakened. This event had the following 

* Brewster, op. cit., p. 39. 



56 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

effect on my mind : I was one night engaged in reading the life 
of Crichton, by Tittler; my family had long retired, I had closed 
my book, and was preparing for rest, when I saw a note of invi- 
tation to a funeral on my table. This mournful letter naturally 
gave a sombre color to my thoughts. I put out the light, and got 
into bed. At the same moment I was conscious that some one 
took me by the arm, and pressed it strongly against my side. I 
struggled, and cried out: ' Let go my arm V and distinctly heard 
these words, spoken in a low tone : Q Do not be afraid.' I replied: 
* Permit me to light the candle.' My arm was released. I was 
alarmed, and thought I was about to lose my senses. I suc- 
ceeded, however, in procuring a light, and, turning towards the 
door, recognized the unfortunate D. His features were indis- 
tinct, as though a gauze were drawn over them. 

" By an unaccountable impulse, I approached the apparition. 
It drew back, and descended the stairs, until it reached the door, 
when it stopped. I passed by to open the street door, but became 
so giddy that I fell into a chair. I do not know how long I 
remained in that state. On recovering my senses, I felt a violent 
pain over my brows, and with difficulty distinguished objects. I 
was feverish and restless during the night, and suffered much the 
next day. This vision appeared to present all the characteristics 
of illusions produced by fever, and I never for an instant looked 
on it as real."* 

Case X. We can match this with a case given by Bostock. 
" Oppressed," relates this English physiologist, "by a fever that 
had reduced me to a state of great weakness, I also suffered from 
a violent headache, which was confined to the right temple. After 
a sleepless night, I observed before me figures similar to those 
described by Nicolai. Being free from delirium, I made my 
remarks on them during the three days and three nights that 
they remained almost uninterruptedly. Two circumstances ap- 
peared to me very remarkable, namely, that the apparitions 
always followed the movement of the eyes; and that the objects 
best formed, and which remained the longest, had never before 
appeared. I had constantly before me, for twenty-four hours, 
a human face, whose features and headdress were as distinct as 
those of a living person, and whose whole appearance, after the 

* Paters on, op. cit. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 57 

interval of many years, is as vividly before me as it then was. 
I never knew any one having the slightest resemblance to this 
fantastic personage. 

"After the disappearance of this phantom, and during the 
progress of my sickness, I had a particular and very amusing 
hallucination. I perceived a crowd of little human figures, which 
disappeared by degrees like a troop of puppets ; they were all 
of the same height, and apparently at the same distance. When 
one of these figures had remained visible for a few minutes, it 
melted away, and was replaced by another more distinct. I do 
not recollect that these apparitions had any resemblance to 
persons or objects which I had previously seen, but they were so 
many creations or new combinations, the originals of which I 
could not trace."* 

"If it be asked," adds Conolly, "how it was that Nicolai and 
the English physiologist did not lose their reason, the reply is, 
that they never believed in the reality of these visions. But why 
did they not believe, since the deranged have full faith in them ? 
The evidence is alike in both cases, since it is closely linked with 
the evidence of the senses, than which nothing can be better. 
Did not Nicolai and Dr. Bostock deserve the name of madmen, 
for not believing their senses, rather than they who did ? The 
explanation should be thus : The printer of Berlin and the 
London physician compared the objects that passed before their 
eyes, and concluded that the room could not contain so many 
persons. Noticing the tranquillity and the unembarrassed looks 
of those around them, it was evident that these apparitions were 
invisible to them ; with the assistance of their other senses, they 
became convinced that the appearances were false, whatever 
madmen might make of them. 

" These examples lead to the suspicion, which is confirmed by 
many others, that madness consists in the loss or the weakening 
of one or more of the mental faculties, which no longer have the 
power of comparing. "f 

A state of weakness, convalescence, syncope, and that condi- 
tion which precedes asphyxia, sometimes cause hallucinations. 

* Bostock, System of Physiology, voh iii. p. 204. 

f Conolly, An Inquiry concerning the Indications of Insanity, p. 112, 
8vo., London, 1834. 



58 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Leuret relates a fact that occurred to himself: — 

Case XI. "I was attacked," says this physician, "with the in- 
fluenza, and my brethren having decided that it was necessary to 
bleed me, they took from me three basins of blood. A quarter 
of an hour after the operation, I fell into a swoon, without 
entirely losing consciousness, which lasted during eight hours. 
Whilst they were administering restoratives, I distinctly heard a 
vial placed on a table that was near my bed, and immediately 
a crackling similar to that which occurs from the action of an 
acid on a carbonate. I thought they had spilled some acid on 
the marble table, and reproved those who were about me for 
their negligence. At first they considered that I was dreaming ; 
then that I was delirious ; and they attempted to undeceive me 
by the assurance that there was no vial on the table, and that 
no acid had been spilled. I then understood that I had a 
hallucination, and I gave credit to what I was told, rather than 
to what I had heard. But the noise was so distinct that, had I 
not had experience in hallucinations, I should have been, like 
others, deceived by this unusual phenomenon."* 

M. Andral was himself the puppet of a similar illusion ; for 
several instants he thought that a corpse lay extended before 
him in the room where he slept, after an indisposition. This 
vision might be traced to the painful recollections which the 
sight of a dead body had occasioned the first time he entered a 
dissecting-room. 

It frequently happens that, on raising the head after it has 
been for some time held down, vertigo is experienced, and daz- 
zling and sparkling lights are seen ; the ears also are annoyed 
with a fatiguing, buzzing sound. "With some persons this appears 
to have caused hallucinations. 

Case XII. A servanfcgirl was cleaning a staircase ; raising her 
head, she perceived feet, and then limbs, of so large a size that, 
seized with dread, she fled without waiting the development of 
the apparition. The ignorance of this girl would not allow of 
her assuring herself of the falsity of the vision, which an enlight- 
ened person would have done.f 

A man of superior intelligence was constantly haunted by a 

* Leuret, Fragments Psychologiques sur la Folie, p. 135, Paris, 1834. 
f Ferriar, op. cit. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH KEASON. 59 

spectre, that always appeared to him on lying down. When he 
sat up in bed, it vanished, but reappeared as soon as he assumed 
a horizontal position. (Dendy, op. cit., p. 280.) 

A great struggle of mind, great preoccupation, an association 
of ideas which cannot always be detected, may reproduce a fact 
already forgotten, and give it all the freshness of a living picture. 

Case XIII. A middle-aged, well-dressed man, a stranger in 
Edinburgh, died suddenly in an omnibus. The corpse was ex- 
posed in the police-office until it was claimed by his friends. On 
the following day, a medical man was called in to report on the 
cause of his death. 

On entering the room where the body lay, the reporter was 
struck with the open, intelligent, and agreeable expression on the 
face of the dead. He had completely forgotten the matter, how- 
ever, when it was recalled in the following manner : After seve- 
ral days' close study of a medical subject, he perceived, on raising 
his eyes, the form of the stranger opposite to him, as distinctly 
as he had seen him the first time on the table in the police-office ; 
with this difference only, that he had on his hat. For a while, he 
looked steadfastly on the surgeon, with the same amiable expres- 
sion the latter had before remarked, and in a few minutes dis- 
appeared. 

Mental exertion, in over-exciting the brain, often causes hallu- 
cinations. We have known several persons, amongst them a 
medical man, who distinctly heard voices calling them at night ; 
several of these individuals turned to reply, and went to the door 
under the impression that the bell rang. This state appears to be 
common among those who soliloquize, talk aloud, and hold con- 
versations as though another were present. 

Case XIV. Ben Jonson, who had a tenacious memory, and 
a brilliant imagination, experienced occasionally these false im- 
pressions. He told Drummond that he had passed a whole night 
in watching his great arm-chair, around which he saw Tartars, 
Turks, and Roman Catholics, rise up and fight ; but he added 
that he knew these images to be the result of a heated imagina- 
tion. The vision he had in the house of Sir Robert Cotton, in 
which he appeared to see his son die of the plague in London, 
had probably the same origin.* 

The nature of hallucinations not being always recognized, 

* Paterson, op. cit. 



60 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

it is sometimes necessary to examine, and to compare, in order 
not to fall into error. 

Case XV. "We read, in Abercrombie's work, of the case of a 
man who has been all his life beset with hallucinations. His 
tendency is such that, when he meets a friend in the street, he 
is uncertain whether he is a real person or a phantom. With 
close observation he can perceive a difference between them. The 
features of the real person are more decided, more complete than 
those of the phantom, but he usually corrects his visual impres- 
sions by touch, or by hearing their footsteps. He has the faculty 
of recalling his visions at will, by powerfully fixing his attention 
on the conceptions of his mind. This hallucination may comprise 
a figure, a scene, or an imaginary creation ; but, although he has 
the power to produce the hallucination, he cannot dispel it ; nor, 
having produced it, can he tell how long it will last. This man 
is in the prime of life, of clear intellect, good health, and occupied 
in business. Another person of his family has the same power, 
but in a less degree.* 

Subsection II. — Hallucinations consistent with reason, not 
corrected by the understanding . 

Some years since, in a note addressed to an honorable member, 
M. Bernard d'Apt, who requested my opinion on supernatural- 
ism, I openly avowed my sympathy in that grand creed. A 
journalist, for whom it was intended, hid it in his portfolio, out 
of friendship to me. This question has been renewed by M. 
Guizot, with his accustomed noble-mindedness. f We think, with 
him, that the existence of society is bound up in it. It is in vain 
that modern reason, which, notwithstanding its ijositivism, can- 
not explain the intimate cause of any phenomenon, rejects the 
supernatural ; it is universal, and at the root of all hearts. The 
most elevated minds are frequently its most ardent disciples. 

Dr. Sigmond goes still further; he says, in his remarks on 
hallucinations, that it would be difficult to find a celebrated man 
who has not, in his autobiography or his confessions, made allu- 
sion to some supernatural event of his life ; he adds that the 

* Abercrombie, Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers, 8vo. p. 
380, eleventh edition, London, 1841. 
f See the Preface. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 61 

most sceptical have had, at one time or another, some extraordi- 
nary impression, presentiment, or vision. 

Thus it is that hallucinations are frequently accepted as reali- 
ties, howsoever strange they may appear to those who experience 
them ; but the judgment is not influenced. Men have witnessed 
some singular fact of which they give a more or less plausible 
explanation, but which, in secret, by a certain action of the mind, 
and a particular tendency to superstition, or rather to the super- 
natural, they are induced to regard as the presage of some 
weighty event, some exalted destiny, an inspiration from heaven, 
a warning of Providence. Many great men have believed in the 
existence of a star, a protecting genius; thus, marvellous appa- 
ritions have not always found them incredulous. The distinctive 
character of this kind of hallucination is, that, despite of it, the 
general character receives no stain, and a high reputation for 
wisdom, and virtue, and ability may be attained. (We believe it \ 
not unfrequently happens that it is a lively stimulant to the exe- 
cution of conceived projects. 

Instances of this kind may be cited, for the genuineness of 
which the station of the individual, and the veracity of the 
witnesses, offer a sufficient guarantee. 

Case XVI. In 1806, General Rapp, on his return from the 
siege of Dantzic, desiring to speak with the Emperor, entered 
the cabinet unannounced. He found him in so deep a reverie 
that his entrance was unperceived. The general, finding him 
remain immovable, intentionally made a noise. Napoleon then 
recovered, and,, seizing Rapp by the arm, said to him, pointing to 
the ceiling, "Look up there!" The general made no reply; 
but the question being repeated, he answered that he saw nothing. 
" What," said the Emperor, " you do not see it ? It is my star ; 
it is before you, beaming;" and growing more animated, he con- 
tinued, " it has never deserted me ; I see it on every great occur- 
rence; it urges me onward, and is an unfailing omen of success." 
M. Passy, who had this anecdote from Rapp himself, related it 
to M. Ame'de'e Thierry, at the same time that he delivered his 
interesting communication relative to. his investigation of the 
vision of Constantine (Academie des Sciences Morales et Poli- 
tique, Saturday, April 4, 1846). I also heard it from him. 

Case XVII. About forty years ago, the following circum 



62 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

stance happened to the Marquis of Londonderry, afterwards Lord 
Castlereagh. He went to visit a friend in one of those old castles, 
in the north of Ireland, that novelists choose for the theatre of 
apparitions. The room to which the marquis was shown corre- 
sponded with the general character of the building. In fact, 
the rich sculptured wainscots blackened by time, the immense 
arch of the chimney looking like the entrance to a sepulchre, 
the long range of ancestral portraits with their proud and dis- 
dainful looks, the ample draperies, dusty and heavy, which hung 
before the windows and surrounded the bed, were all well calcu- 
lated to give a melancholy turn to his thoughts. 

Lord Londonderry examined his room, and made acquaintance 
with the old lords of the castle, who, upright in their ivory 
frames, appeared to await his salute. Having dismissed his 
valet, he went to bed. He had scarcely put out his lamp, when 
he became aware of a ray of light at the head of his bed. Con- 
vinced that there was no fire in the grate, that the curtains were 
closed, and that a few minutes previously the room was in total 
darkness, he supposed that some person had entered. Quickly 
turning towards the point whence the light proceeded, he saw, to 
his great astonishment, the figure of a beautiful child surrounded 
with a halo, which stood at some distance from his bed. 

Convinced that he was perfectly in his senses, but suspecting 
a trick on the part of some of the numerous hosts of the castle, 
Lord Londonderry approached the apparition, which retired as he 
advanced, until, reaching the immense arch of the chimney, it 
vanished into the earth. His lordship returned to his bed ; but 
slept not that night, so disturbed was he by the extraordinary 
occurrence. Was it real, or must he look on it as the result of 
an excited imagination? The mystery was not easy to solve. 

He resolved to make no allusion to the affair until he had care- 
fully watched the countenances of all the inmates of the house, 
in order to discover if he had been made the victim of a trick. 
During breakfast, the marquis vainly endeavored to detect some 
of those covert smiles, looks of connivance, or sly winks, that 
generally betray the authors of a domestic conspiracy. The con- 
versation flowed as usual ; it was lively ; nothing bore the stamp 
of mystery ; all passed on as usual. At length, the hero of this 
adventure could no longer resist the desire he felt to relate what 
he had seen ; he entered into all the particulars of the appari- 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH KEASON. 63 

tion. The recital aroused great interest among the auditors, and 
gave rise to a variety of explanations. The master of the house 
interrupted the divers comments, by observing that doubtless his 
lordship's relation had appeared very extraordinary to those who 
had only recently inhabited the castle, and were unacquainted 
with the family legends. Then turning towards Lord London- 
derry : " You have seen the radiant child" said he ; " be satis- 
fied ; it is the presage of high honors ; but I would rather that 
nothing had been said of the apparition." 

On another occasion, Lord Castlereagh saw the radiant child 
in the House of Commons. It is very probable that on the day 
of his suicide he had a similar apparition.* It is known that 
this lord, one of the chief members of the Harrowby Ministry, 
and the most inveterate persecutor of Napoleon in his misfor- 
tunes, severed his carotid artery on the 22d of August, 1823, 
and died instantly. 

Case XVIII. The following curious details may be found in 
the Biography of Charles John Bernadotte, published in a Pau 
journal, the town where the late King of Sweden was born. 

" . . . There exist singular mysteries in certain destinies. The 
surprising fortune of Bernadotte had, it is said, been predicted 
by a famous sorceress, who had also foretold that of Bonaparte, 
and who so entirely possessed the superstitious confidence of the 
Empress Josephine. Destiny seemed never to tire in protecting 
Bernadotte; he continued to rise without ever experiencing the 
almost inevitable reverses that attend those ambitious spirits who 
overleap the abyss that divides modest obscurity from the most 
brilliant greatness. 

"Like all men, who feel a power in themselves that impels 
them on to fortune, or enables them to seize favorable circum- 
stances, Bernadotte believed in a special destiny, in a sort of 
tutelar divinity, who selected from the crowd certain individuals 
and became their protector. Probably, the marvellous old tra- 
ditions, that surrounded his cradle, were the groundwork of the 
semi-pagan superstition that he never mistrusted. In an ancient 
family chronicle, it was related that a fairy, who was the wife of 
one of his ancestors, had predicted that a king should make her 
posterity illustrious. Formerly, in our country-places, every 

* Forbes Winslow, Anatomy of Suicide, 1 vol. 8vo. p. 242, London, 1840. 



64 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

family had its good genius, by which it was guarded. Bernadotte 
never forgot the legend that had cradled his early years, and it 
was probably not without its influence on the glorious destiny of 
this great man. 

"We will relate a fact that proves what an ascendency the 
marvellous had on the mind of the King of Sweden. He was 
desirous to settle, by the sword, the difficulties that Norway op- 
posed to him, and to send his son Oscar at the head of an army 
to reduce the rebels, and bring them under his sway ; but he 
was violently opposed by the Council of State. One day, after 
a violent discussion on the subject, he mounted his horse and 
galloped away from the capital. After a long ride, he reached 
the borders of a deep forest. Suddenly an old woman, strangely 
dressed, and with disordered hair, stood before him. 'What do 
you want?' roughly asked the king. The apparent sorceress 
replied, without being disconcerted: 'If Oscar fights in the war 
you meditate, he will not give the first blows, but will receive 
them.' Bernadotte, struck with this apparition and these words, 
returned to his palace. On the following day, he entered the 
council, bearing on his countenance the traces of a long and 
agitating vigil. 'I have changed my mind,' said he; 'we will 
negotiate peace, but it must be on honorable terms.' Did those 
who knew the weak point in the mind of this great man work 
upon it to serve the cause of justice, reason, and humanity ? 
or, rather, is it not probable that the thoughts which preoccupied 
him, and lighted up the brain (as constantly happens in dreams, 
and even in waking hours), appeared objectively before him, and 
that the mental operation was accepted as a real occurrence? 
This explanation appears to us more admissible than that an old 
cheat should be found exactly on the spot where the caprice of 
the king conducted him."* 

Case XIX. M. de Chateaubriand relates, in his Life of M. de 
Ranee, that, as that celebrated man was walking down the ave- 
nue of his chateau of Yeretz, he thought he saw the buildings, in 
the lower court, on fire. Hastening towards them, the fire dimin- 
ished at his approach. At some distance, the flames disappeared 
and changed into a lake of fire, in the midst of which arose the 
body of a woman, partly consumed. Seized with fear, he ran, 

* Presse, May 14, 1844. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 65 

and reached the house, where, in a fainting state, he sank on a 
bed. He was so bewildered that he was unable to utter a 
word.* 

To the foregoing anecdote we will add the following, on ac- 
count of the resemblance of ideas in the two persons. 

Case XX. The Baron de Geramb, returning from the Port to 
Cadiz, in company with some Spanish ladies, heard a voice call 
to him, in French, "Save me! help, help!" He paid but little 
attention to it at the time. On the following day, he saw on the 
shore a dead body, laid on a black plank, lighted by torches 
placed at each side, which he gave orders to have covered. A 
tempest having arisen during the evening, a secret impulse at- 
tracted him towards the shore. Greatly to his surprise, he saw 
arise from the spot where the corpse lay, a shapeless phantom, 
shrouded in the large black garment that he had sent. The 
spectre began to take prodigious strides, taking a globular form, 
and describing circles ; it bounded off, and appeared at a distance 
in gigantic proportions. 

The baron followed it across the streets of Cadiz. The 
noise it made in its course resembled the shivering of autumn 
leaves. A door was violently opened ; the phantom dashed like 
lightning into the house, and sank to the cellar. Heavy waitings 
were heard. The baron descended, and found the corpse naked 
and livid, over which hung an aged man, heaving sighs of misery 
and despair. In an obscure corner of this cellar was the 
phantom, whirling as in its course thither : it was presently 
changed into a bright cloud. This was again metamorphosed 
into the pallid form of a young man, imitating the undulating 
movement of a wave. The Baron de Gdramb afterwards heard 
anthems chanted and prayers offered up for the dead; and a 
bright young girl, dressed in white, entered and knelt by the 
side of the dead.f 

Antiquity has bequeathed us many of these hallucinations, 
which, owing to the current belief, excited no surprise either on 
the part of the witnesses, of the magistrates, or of the people. 
We will translate simply the following case :— 

* Life of Ranee, by Chateaubriand, Paris, 1844. 

f Walter Cooper Dendy, The Philosophy of Mystery, p. 11, London, 
1841. 



66 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Case XXI. We read in a letter from Pliny, Consul of Sara, 
that there was a house in Athens haunted by a spirit, which 
dragged chains after it. Athenodorus, the philosopher, hired 
the house, determined to lay the spirit. At the approach of 
night, he ordered a bed to be prepared, and, having received a 
lamp, his pencil, and tablets, he sent away his slaves. The 
early part of the night passed in the most perfect quiet, but at 
length the sound of chains was heard. Instead of raising his 
eyes and dropping his pencil, he continued his studies more in- 
tensely. The noise increased, until at length it sounded at his 
very door. 

Athenodorus looked up and beheld the spectre, such as it had 
been represented; it stood opposite to him, making signs with 
its finger. He begged it to wait awhile, and turned again fo his 
papers ; but the phantom, again clanking its chains, renewed its 
signals, Athenodorus arose, and taking the light followed it. 
The spectre advanced slowly, as if encumbered by its chains, 
and arrived in the court-yard of the house, where it suddenly 
disappeared. The philosopher marked the spot with grass and 
leaves. On the following day he informed the magistrates of the 
event, and desired that the place should be searched. His advice 
was followed, and the skeleton of a man in chains was discovered. 
The bones were collected and publicly burned, and the spirit 
from that time no longer haunted the house.* 

Many examples might be cited in which illustrious men have 
had hallucinations of this nature, without their conduct being at 
all influenced by the circumstance. 

Thus Malebranche declared that he distinctly heard the voice 
of God within him. Descartes, after a long seclusion, was fol- 
lowed by an invisible person, who urged him to pursue his re- 
searches after truth, f 

Byron imagined himself to be sometimes visited by a spectre ; 
but he said that it was owing to the over-excitability of his 
brain.J 

The celebrated Dr. Johnson clearly heard his mother call 
Samuel. She was then living in a town at a great distance. 

* Dendy, op. cit., p. 15. 

f Forbes Winslow, op. cit., p. 123. 

% Ibid., p. 126. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 67 

Pope, who suffered much in his intestines, one day inquired of 
his physician what arm that was that appeared to come out from 
the wall. 

Goethe asserts that he one day saw the counterpart of himself 
coming towards him. [Complete Works, t. xxii. p. 83.) The 
German psychologists give the name of Deuterescopie to this 
kind of illusion. 

Case XXII. Oliver Cromwell was stretched fatigued and sleep- 
less on his bed. Suddenly the curtains opened, and a woman of 
gigantic size appeared, and told him that he would be the greatest 
man in England. The Puritan faith, and the ambition of Crom- 
well, might have suggested, during those troublous times of the 
kingdom, some still stronger idea; and who can say whether, had 
the phantom murmured these words in his ear, " Thou wilt one 
day be king!" the protector would have refused the crown, as 
did Caesar at the Lupercalian feasts ?* 

The silence and horror of a dungeon may explain certain hal- 
lucinations that have occurred to persons remarkable for their 
mind and talents. As in the preceding cases, false impressions 
have been taken for realities, without the reason being affected — 
a result which appears to belong to the ideas of the time, and 
to religious belief, inasmuch as those illusions in no wise interfered 
with the habits and sentiments of those who experienced them. 

Case XXIII. Benvenuto Cellini, imprisoned in Home by order 
of the Pope, was so overcome with ennui and suffering that he 
resolved on suicide. " One day," says he, " determined to put 
an end to myself, I suspended, with great effort, «an enormous 
beam over my head ; but I was arrested, and flung some paces 
from it in an invisible manner. I reflected on the cause that had 
prevented my destroying myself, and concluded that it was a 
divine interference. During the night, a young man of won- 
derful beauty appeared to me in a dream, and said, with a 
reproachful air: 'Thou knowest who gave thee life, and thou 
wouldst quit it before thy time.' I answered, it appears to me, 
that 'I acknowledged all the gifts of God.' ' Why, then,' replied 
he, ' wouldst thou cancel them ? Be resigned, and lose not thy 
hope in His divine goodness.' 

" The governor was cruel. The invisible youth that had pre- 

* Dendy, op. cit., p. 41. 



68 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

vented my committing suicide came to me, and, in a clear voice, 
said: i My dear Benvenuto, come, come, pray earnestly to God !' 
Terrified, I threw myself on my knees, and recited my usual ori- 
sons. The same voice said to me: ' Go to rest now, and fear not.' 

"I frequently asked the invisible spirit who gave me such good 
advice to let me see the sun, the object of all my dreams. On 
the 2d of October, 1539, I was still more earnest in my prayer. 
On the next morning, awaking an hour before daylight, and 
having dressed myself in an old coat that I had, for the weather 
was becoming cold, I began my orisons, and supplicated Jesus 
Christ to let me know, by inspiration, if I was considered un- 
worthy to see the sun — for what fault I was subjected to so heavy 
a penance. I had scarcely finished, when I was carried, as if by 
a whirlwind, by my invisible spirit, into a room where he appeared 
to me under the semblance of a handsome young man, but whose 
whole appearance was austere. ' There,' said he, showing me a 
multitude of people, ' are all the men who have lived and died 
until now' (it will be remembered that Benvenuto was well versed 
in Dante). I prayed him to explain his motive for thus acting. 
' Come with me,' said he, ' and thou shalt see.' 

"I had a short poniard in my hand, and wore my coat of 
mail. As I walked on, I saw, in an immense hall, men moving 
in crowds in every direction. Then the spirit having conducted 
me through a narrow gallery, I was suddenly disarmed. Bare- 
headed, and dressed in a white robe, I walked on his right. I 
was in a state of admiration, mingled with surprise, for every 
place that I entered was new to me. I raised my eyes, and saw 
a wall on which the sun shone; but I saw not the sun himself. 
6 My friend,' said I to my guide, ' how can I be sufficiently raised 
to see the face of that planet ?' He showed me a small ladder. 
* Go up there,' said he. I went backwards up the ladder. By 
degrees I began to see the sun, and, rising still higher, saw his 
entire globe. The strength of his rays caused me to lower my 
eyes ; but I took courage, and, looking fixedly at it, exclaimed : 
4 Oh, sun ! whom I have so longed to see, I will contemplate but 
thee, even if thy fires blind me.' 

"I stood, therefore, with a firm countenance; his rays soon 
spread to the right, and presently covered the whole globe, which 
caused me inexpressible admiration. 

" 'What favor has God shown to me !' said I; 'what power exists 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH KEASON. 59 

in his virtue!' The sun appeared a circle of the purest gold; 
suddenly I saw it increase, and from it came a Christ on a cross 
of the same material ; he had an expression of goodness and 
grace that no pencil can paint. Whilst I cried out, l Oh miracle ! 
oh miracle! with what happiness am I this morning filled!' 
Christ moved towards the side whence the rajs had emerged, 
which parted as at first, and there issued a beautiful virgin, hold- 
ing her son in her arms, and bestowing upon me the sweetest 
smile. Two angels were by her side, and a pontiff knelt before 
her. All these wonderful objects were clearly and vividly dis- 
played, and I loudly and unceasingly praised God. When I had 
enjoyed this marvellous sight during half a quarter of an hour, 
I was suddenly retransported to my prison, -where I continued 
giving thanks to the Most High, saying, ' God has at length made 
me worthy to see what no mortal ever saw before.' "* 

With this we may compare the case of Sylvio Pellico, of which 
we shall speak hereafter ; but in the latter, the cause of the 
vision was fully appreciated. 

The following instance we must trace to the influence of dark- 
ness and fear, strengthened by the belief of the age. 

Ferriar thinks that the first visions took place during sleep, 
and that the noises of the second night were but reminiscences. 

Case XXIV. " In 1647,". writes Bovet, " I was, together with 
several estimable persons, in the house of a gentleman in the 
west, which had formerly been a convent for females. The serv- 
ants, and some of those who had visited it, spoke much of noises 
and apparitions that disturbed the peace of the house ; but 
just now, in consequence of the great influx of company, fear 
had greatly ceased. At the hour of rest, the steward of the 

host, who was named C , accompanied me into a handsome 

room, called the ladies' room ; having passed some time in read- 
ing, we retired to bed, after putting out the light. The moon 
shone so brightly that the steward could see to read manuscript. 
We had just been noticing the circumstance when (my face being 
turned towards the door) I saw five very pretty women enter ; 
their elegant forms were richly clothed, but entirely covered with 
light veils that reached down to their feet. They made the tour 

* Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, written by Himself, translated from 
the Italian by M. de St. Marcel, Paris, 1822, pp. 285, 290, et seq. 



70 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

of the room in file, when the first came to my bedside, and gave 
me a slight blow with her hand ; I do not recollect if it was 
warm or cold. 

" I asked, in the name of the Holy Trinity, what they wanted; 
but they made no reply. I then addressed Mr. C: 'Do you see 
the beautiful ladies,' said I, 'who have come to visit you?' 

" Instantly they disappeared. 

" Mr. C. was in an agony of terror; I was obliged to press his 
breast strongly to make him speak ; he said that he saw them, 
and heard me address them, but that he found it impossible to 
speak sooner, he had been so alarmed at the sight of a horrible 
monster, half lion, half bear, who was attempting to get up on 
the foot of the bed. He owned that, although for several years 
he had often heard noises in his room, and others had complained 
of it, he had never been so alarmed. The next day, at dinner, 
he showed me the mark I had made on his breast to oblige him 
to speak, very particularly related what had occurred, and de- 
clared he would not inhabit the room again. For my part, I re- 
solved to sleep there again, in order to penetrate the mystery. 

" The next night I took a Bible with me, intending to read 
and meditate. At one o'clock I lay down ; I had scarcely done 
so, when I heard some one walking in the room ; the noise was like 
the rustling of a silk dress on the floor, and it was distinct, but 
I saw nothing, although the moon was as bright as on the pre- 
ceding night. The apparition passed at the foot of the bed, 
opened the curtains, then directed its steps towards an inner 
room, which it entered, although it was locked ; it then appeared 
to sigh, pushed a chair with its foot, sat down, and turned the 
leaves of a large folio. This lasted till daybreak. Since that 
time I have frequently occupied the room, but heard no recur- 
rence of the noise."* 

The apparition thus seen by two witnesses is naturally ex- 
plained by the fear which overpowered them, and the nightmare 
under which one of them labored. 

In the two following instances, the apparitions may, to a certain 
extent, receive their explanation in the ties of sympathy that ex- 
ist between members of a united family. It is a psychological 

* Ferriar, already quoted, p. 89. — Richard Bovet, Pandaemonium, or the 
Devil's Cloyster, 1684, eighth edition, p. 202. — Scott's Demonology and 
Witchcraft, London, 1830. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 71 

trait, that has often struck us, that the features, especially of 
man and wife, appear to grow into harmony, and that their 
thoughts frequently coincide by a sort of divination, without any 
verbal communication. 

Case XXV. One day, in the year 1652, Philip, second Earl 
of Chesterfield, saw something white, like a spread sheet, about 
a yard from the head of his bed. 

He attempted to seize it, but it slid away to the foot, and 
disappeared. His thoughts immediately turned to his wife, 
who was at Networth with her father, the Earl of Northumber- 
land. On his arrival at Networth, a servant met him at the foot 
of the staircase, and gave him a letter from his wife, whom he 
found in company. with Lady Essex, and her sister Mrs. Ramsey. 
They questioned him on the reason of his sudden return, which he 
made known, and on reading the letter he found it was to hasten 
his return, as his wife had seen something white, and a black fig- 
ure, at her bedside. These apparitions were seen by the earl 
and countess at the same time, although the two were forty miles 
apart.* 

Case XXVI. A young man of eighteen, quite free from 
enthusiastic, romantic, or superstitious tendencies, was at Rams- 
gate for his health. Walking one day in a neighboring village, 
he entered a church about the close of day, and was struck 
with terror to see a spectre of his mother, who had died, several 
months before, of a wasting and painful disease that had excited 
much pity in her attendants. The figure remained immovable 
for a considerable time, and stood between him and the wall. 
Almost fainting, he reached his lodging ; the same apparition 
appearing for several successive nights in his room, he felt so ill 
that he hastened to return to Paris, where his father lived. At 
the same time he resolved not to mention the vision to him, 
fearing to add to his distress for the loss of an adored wife. 

Obliged to sleep in his father's room, he was surprised to find 
a night-lamp burning, which was contrary to their custom, and in 
direct opposition to their tastes. After several hours of restless- 
ness caused by the light, the son got out of bed to extinguish it. 
The father immediately woke in great agitation, and desired 
him to light it again, which he did, very much surprised at his 

* Dendy, op. cit, p. 27. 



72 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

anger, and the fear betrayed on his features. His inquiries as to 
the cause of his terror were vaguely answered, but with a promise 
some day to explain it. 

About a week from this time, the son, being unable to sleep on 
account of the light, ventured a second time to extinguish it; but 
his father sprang out of bed, trembling very much, reproached 
him for his disobedience, and relighted it ; when he owned that, 
whenever he was in the dark, the phantom of his wife appeared, 
stood immovable, nor vanished until the reintroduction of light. 
This recital deeply impressed the young man, and, fearing to 
augment the grief of his father by relating his Ramsgate 
adventure, he shortly after quitted Paris for a town in the 
interior about sixty miles off, to see a brother who was there at 
school, and to whom he had not confided what had happened to 
him, for fear of ridicule. 

He had scarcely exchanged courtesies with the inmates of the 
house, when the son of the schoolmaster said to him : "Has your 
brother ever shown any symptoms of insanity ? He came down 
stairs last night undressed, quite out of his mind, declaring that 
he had seen the ghost of his mother, and dared not return to his 
room, and he immediately fainted from fear." 

Wigan says, if the apparition had been seen by these several 
persons at the same time, it would favor the opinion of those who 
maintain that the dead revisit the earth. This argument does not 
appear to us so irresistible as to Wigan, because, in the case of 
Lord Chesterfield, the vision appeared to the earl and countess 
at the same time. As to the apparition appearing successively 
to three persons, it can be explained by the lively affection they 
all felt for the deceased, by the distressing circumstances attend- 
ing her last illness, and by a tendency to reproduce her image 
on closing the eyes.* 

Case XXVII. The famous Bodin, in his book De la Demono- 
logie des Sorciers, relates the following: "I have heard of a 
person, still living, who has a spirit constantly attending him, and 
with whom he was becoming well acquainted, having had his com- 
pany for thirty-seven years. Every morning, at three or four 
o'clock, the spirit knocked at his door; sometimes he rose and 
opened it, but saw no one. His friend, the king's secretary, who 

* Wigan, op. cit., p. 167. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 73 

is still living, one day, being at dinner with him, hearing the spirit 
knock on a stool that stood near to him, began to grow red, and 
to fear; but he said, 'Do not be afraid; it is nothing.' He as- 
sured me that it had accompanied him ever since, giving him a 
sensible sign, touching his right ear when he acted wrongly, 
and the left ear if he did well. If any one approached to sur- 
prise or deceive him, he suddenly felt the signal on the right 
ear; if, on the contrary, it was a rich man who came for his good, 
he felt the signal on the left ear. If he had a bad thought, and 
dwelt upon it, he felt the signal to desist; and if he had bad 
dreams, or unpleasant reveries — the result of indisposition or a 
troubled mind — the spirit would awaken him at two or three in 
the morning ; he would sleep again, and have dreams as to what 
would happen, so that, he says, since that time, nothing has hap- 
pened of which he has not been apprised, nor has he doubted 
what he should believe, or what course to pursue. He was 
frequently warned to give alms, and the more charitable he has 
been the better have his affairs prospered. One day, his life 
being in great danger, having earnestly prayed to God that he 
might be preserved, he saw, at dawn, a young child lying on the 
bed, dressed in a white and purple changeable colored robe, and 
of marvellous beauty, which greatly comforted him."* 

This case has especial interest, being one of those examples of 
hallucination to which M. Michea has given the name of de- 
doublee, or occurring only on one side. Gay Patin (Pateniana, 
p. 3) has supposed that the above history is that of Bodin him- 
self. 

Let us pause awhile on the considerations suggested by this 
chapter, wherein we have purposely multiplied facts. Many 
portraits in this gallery belong to well-known characters; we 
chose them in preference, because it never entered into any one's 
mind to consider those who were the subjects of these hallucina- 
tions as madmen. In fact, some of these persons appreciated 
them at their value, as the tricks of imagination, the effects of 
an unhealthy condition of the body ; while others, implicitly be- 
lieving in the supernatural, were induced, through self-confidence, 

* Bodin Augevin, De la Demonomanie des Sorciers grand, in 8vo. Paris, 
1587, p. 11, et seq. At Rouen, there is an edition in 8vo., which was pub- 
lished at Anvers in 1593. 



74 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

or by reason of the opinions of the time, or their superstitious 
notions, secretly to explain them in a manner to suit them- 
selves; but neither their conversation nor their conduct gave any 
indications of a disordered mind. Perhaps with some, hallucina- 
tions have been the source of noble actions ! Frequently, how- 
ever, we can trace the transition from hallucinations in a state of 
sanity to those which exist in a state of madness, without always 
being able to lay hold of the distinctions that determine the sepa- 
ration, so difficult is it to point out the respective boundaries of 
the two conditions. 

In closing this chapter, we are happy to support our opinion 
by the authority of a critic, whose acquirements, talents, and in- 
genuousness every one acknowledges. "It is certain," says he, 
"that there is a vast difference to be established between affec- 
tions of the brain that exclusively attack the sensations, and 
those that affect the understanding. There are individuals who, 
followed by voices or figures, are perfectly aware that they are 
dupes of their imagination. How does this happen ? A certain 
work is spontaneously formed in the brain, a work which ordi- 
narily operates by the instigation of a material sensation. That 
is all. The rest of the brain continues to act normally. If 
delirium exists here, it is a partial delirium, and does not affect 
what is properly called mind. It is to this that may be given 
the name of delirium of the sensations. Other individuals again 
do not rectify their hallucinations ; they believe in the reality of 
perceived sensations, but, at the same time, they explain them as 
supernatural causes, the interference of a higher power, etc. On 
other points, their conduct is perfectly sensible. In our opinion, 
there is no more madness with these than with the others. Their 
point of view being different, they form a different judgment of 
the impressions which they receive ; they deduce different con- 
sequences ; but the derangement has not exceeded the sphere of 
the sensorial faculties. In order that madness be real, confirmed, 
that it be alienation, it is requisite, in order to be true to the 
etymology of the word, that the intellectual portion of conscious- 
ness, or that belonging to the affections, be injured — that the 
individual be master neither of his will nor of his judgment."* 

* A. de Chambe, Analysis of M. Stafkowski's work on Hallucinations, 
in their Relations to Psychology, History, and Medical Jurisprudence. 



HALLUCINATIONS CONSISTENT WITH REASON. 75 

Recapitulation. — Optical and acoustic experience proves that 
hallucinations can he normally produced. 

But it is in psychological facts especially that hallucinations 
consistent with reason are observable. Among the states of the 
mind that are favorable to the production of this phenomenon, 
reverie occupies the first rank. 

An important distinction should be made between the reverie 
of thinkers and those of the weak-minded. Noble acts charac- 
terize the first; foolish enterprises the second. In this case, 
differences in climate and civilization should be considered, as 
among the Orientals reverie is universal, and insanity is rare. 

The belief in the supernatural is in the depths of the heart. 
Many noted men have faith in their star, and attribute the chief 
events of their lives to it. 

From an examination of the preceding psychological facts, 
and the observations which accompany them, we may conclude, 
without fear of being deceived, that there are hallucinations 
consistent with reason, whether regarded as deceptions, or ac- 
cepted as realities ; but in this case, actions do not depart 
from the common track ; hallucination is an exceptional fact that 
has no grievous influence on the conduct. 

The coexistence of reason and hallucinations will permit us 
hereafter to explain, in a suitable manner, the words and acts of 
celebrated men who have been wrongly accused of insanity. 

These kinds of hallucination may be produced at will, either 
physically or intellectually. They sometimes appear without 
any obvious signs of disordered organization, but they also fre- 
quently arise from a derangement of the nervous and circulating 
systems. Some of these hallucinations establish the transition 
from reason to insanity. 

The continuance of hallucinations, although their character 
be understood, may occasion the saddest results, even death 
itself. 



CHAPTER III. 

HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 

Section I. — Simple isolated hallucinations — Their action on the mind — Profound 
conviction of the hallucinated — Loss of the senses no obstacle to hallucina- 
tions — Cases— Of hallucination of hearing by deaf persons — Hallucinations, in- 
ternal and external, isolated or combined — Hallucination of the sight — Visions — 
Visionaries — Belief in apparitions — These hallucinations vary like those of 
hearing — Hallucinations in weakness or loss of sight — The hallucinated be- 
lieve they can see inside their bodies, a power analogous to that possessed 
by persons magnetized — Hallucinations of sight and hearing combined — Hallu- 
cination of the touch — Difficulties of diagnosis — Certain tactile hallucinations 
referable to hypochondriacal illusions — Hallucinations of smell and taste, as rare 
as the preceding — Hallucinations rarely unconnected with one of the forms of 
insanity — Very common in madness and several other diseases — Recapitulation. 

Section II. — General hallucinations — Recapitulation. 

SECT. I.— SIMPLE, ISOLATED HALLUCINATIONS. 

Reason, hitherto intact, is about to yield to the influence of 
insanity ; deserting the reins which she had so long held with a 
firm grasp, she is about to give way to error, whose caprices and 
decrees are omnipotent. In proportion as the one acted with 
prudence and circumspection, so will the other be obstinate and 
impetuous. 

It must not, however, be supposed that this change always 
takes place without gradation. Sometimes the unhappy being, 
who is conscious for the first time of a hallucination, attempts to 
check it ; and when he has long been tormented by it, and it still 
comes nearer and nearer, he uses every effort to conceal the 
struggle from those who surround him, keeps silence, and becomes 
sad and morose. Finally, when the evil has attacked his body, 
he still strives against it, convinced that he is the sport of an 
illusion. It may even happen that none of his actions are influ- 
enced by the hallucination. But it is most frequently the case 
that it carries with it a strong conviction to which the sufferers 
slavishly bow, blindly following all its dictates. 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 77 

Hallucinations of hearing. — Sometimes the hallucinated hears 
a voice that whispers in his ear the strangest words, and issues the 
most extravagant orders. These voices almost always occur in 
the silence of night, at twilight, dawn, and in gloom and dark- 
ness. Do we not see, in this fact, a physiological phenomenon 
common to mankind? Is it not at such hours that he experiences 
those shades of restless anxiety and fear against which reason 
does not always keep guard ? Hallucinations of hearing are the 
most common; they have been estimated as comprising two- thirds 
of the whole. Dr. Baillarger attributes the presence of hallu- 
cinations, at such times, to diminished watchfulness. The case 
of Blake does not support this opinion. 

Case XXVIII. M. N., fifty-five years of age, was, in 1812, 
prefect in a large German town that rebelled against the French 
army in its retreat. The confusion arising from these events 
disorders the brain of the prefect. He imagines himself accused 
of high treason, and consequently dishonored. In this state, he 
cuts his throat with a razor ; on recovering his senses, he hears 
voices accusing him. Cured of his wound, the same voices fol- 
low him; he is persuaded that he is surrounded with spies, 
and denounced to his enemies. These voices repeat to him day 
and night that he has betrayed his duty, is dishonored, and that 
nothing is left but to kill himself ; they speak successively in all 
the European languages, with which the sufferer is familiar; one 
voice alone is less clear than the others, for it uses the Russian, 
with which Mr. N. is less conversant. In the midst of these con- 
flicting voices, he hears that of a lady, who frequently bids him 
take courage, and have faith. 

Frequently Mr. N. shuts himself up, that he may better hear 
and understand ; he questions, he replies, he bids defiance, he 
grows angry, in addressing those whom he imagines speak to 
him ; he is convinced that his enemies, by various methods, can 
divine his most intimate thoughts, and convey to him reproaches, 
menaces, and overwhelm him with the most sinister advice. On 
other points, he reasons perfectly well, and all his intellectual 
faculties are perfectly sound. 

Returning to his country, Mr. N. passes the summer of 1812 
in his chateau, where he receives much company. When con- 
versation interests him, he hears no voices; if it languishes, he 
hears them imperfectly, and then withdraws, the better to listen 



78 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

to these treacherous voices; he becomes more restless and sus- 
picious. The following autumn he comes to Paris; the same 
symptoms beset him during the journey, and provoke him on his 
arrival. The voices repeat: "Kill yourself; you cannot survive 
your dishonor !" " No, no,'* replies the sufferer, "I will not die 
till I am justified ; I will not bequeath a dishonored memory to 
my daughter." He visits the minister of police (Real), who 
receives him very graciously, and endeavors to reassure him ; but 
scarcely is he in the street before the voices again harass him. 

Confided to my care, the patient keeps his room, and does not 
betray his secret. After two months, he appears to wish that I 
shall prolong my visits. I take a notion to call these voices 
gabblers; the word succeeds, and, in future, he makes use of it 
to express their horrible importunity. I venture to speak of his 
disorder, and of the causes of its continuance ; he details to me 
what he has long endured, and yields a little more attention to 
my arguments; disputes my objections ; refutes my opinion on 
the causes of the voices, and recalls to my memory an invisible 
woman in Paris, who, on being spoken to, gave answers from a 
distance. Physics, he said, had made such progress that, by aid 
of machinery, voices could be conveyed very far. "You travelled 
post one hundred leagues ; doubtless the noise of the carriage 
would prevent your gabblers from being heard?" "Certainly; 
but with their contrivances I heard them distinctly." The pre- 
sent state of politics, the approach of foreign armies to Paris, 
strike him as fables, invented to ensnare his opinions. Some 
time after, the siege of Paris takes place; the patient insists 
that it is not a battle, but a field-day; that the journals are 
printed for him. On the 15th of April, "Shall we go out?" 
he asks suddenly. We go instantly to the Jar din des Plantes, 
where there are a number of soldiers wearing the uniform of all 
nations. We had scarcely gone a hundred paces, when Mr. N. 
seizes me by the arm: "You have not deceived me," says he ; 
"let us return; I have seen enough ; I was sick ; I am cured." 

From that moment the gabblers are quiet, or are only heard 
in the morning on rising. My convalescent can get rid of them 
by the briefest conversation, reading, or by walking. But then 
he looks on this symptom as I myself do ; he considers it a 
nervous phenomenon, and expresses his astonishment that he was 
so long duped by it. He agrees to the application of leeches, 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 79 

foot-baths, and purgative mineral water. In the month of May, 
he resided in the country, enjoying perfect health, notwithstand- 
ing he had had the misfortune to lose his only daughter, and had 
other afflictions. Mr. N. returned to his country in 1815, where 
he was called to the ministry. 

This instance is the most simple case of hallucination of hear- 
ing that I have gathered. The hallucination characterized the 
cerebral affection of the patient ; his inquietude, his mistrust, 
his fears, were only the results of the phenomenon, which lasted 
during two months, although he had perfectly recovered the exer- 
cise of his understanding. Was custom the cause of this perti- 
nacity ?* 

Case XXIX. The patient who is the subject of this case had 
shown much talent in the public office to which he was attached ; 
but, overpowered with his fixed idea, he ceased to acquit himself 
of his duties, became tiresome to his colleagues, and was obliged 
to resign. His mind was perfect when he spoke on subjects for- 
eign to his hallucination. On this subject he was immovable, and 
advanced very specious reasons in favor of his argument. We 
transcribe one of his letters, addressed to a person in authority, 
as a specimen of his frenzy : — 

" Sir, I had the honor to write you last year on the subject of 
a robbery. From that moment, and even farther back, I have 
heard, both at my own house and at my office, the most deafening 
noises, which were quite insupportable. At the same time, I was 
offered, from a place that appeared near to my house, the grossest 
insults. Individuals and various objects were, named to me inces- 
santly, night and day. I was fatigued with these infernal tricks. 
They have caused, and still do cause me, at certain hours, abstrac- 
tions that all my presence of mind fails to combat. To put the 
climax to these stupid and annoying manoeuvres, they have sent 
me to Dr. Boismont's madhouse, where they continue the same 
punishment. 

" I have just written to legal authorities, who, I am told, ought 
to know what are trespasses against individual liberty. I hope 
they will interpose, in order that the law may have its full and 
plain effect, and that I may be removed from a situation so pre- 
judicial to my interests. I have begged them to write to or to 

* Esquirol, Des Maladies Mentales, 1838, vol. i. p. 160. 



80 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

see me as frequently as they judge it advisable, in order that 
they may assure themselves, in the absence of the physicians, 
not only that my reason is sound, but that it has never ceased to 
be in a normal state. I hope this will urge them to take measures 
against the guilty, and restore me to liberty. 

" Your friendly solicitude leads me to believe that you will 
give a satisfactory issue to this affair, and that in a few days 
hence I shall be at liberty to return home, and to do what I con- 
sider right, taking only my own will forjudge." 

Persons who have distressing hallucinations make every effort 
to convince others of the reality of their sensations, and, per- 
suaded of their truth, overwhelm the authorities with complaints. 
Sometimes their pretended griefs are exhibited so artfully, that 
it requires an attentive and repeated examination to arrive at a 
knowledge of the truth. 

The loss of the senses is not an obstacle to hallucinations. 
This fact, which appears to us the clearest line of demarcation 
between hallucination and illusion, proves that sensations and 
images, once received in the brain, remain there for a length of 
time. 

Case XXX. An ecclesiastic, deprived of hearing, composed 
Latin and French poems, discourses, letters, and sermons, in 
several languages. He imagined he wrote from the dictation of 
the archangel Michael, asserting that of himself he was unable 
to produce so many and such beautiful works.* 

Madame M., twenty-four years of age, almost entirely deaf, 
imagined that her husband, who had been dead for several years, 
was walking on the roof of the establishment. She called on 
him night and day, and conversed with him. " Ah, my God!" 
said she, "he says he is naked; quick, bring him clothes. He 
complains that he has nothing to eat ; give him broth, a glass of 
wine." And she sighed, complained, wept, and tore her hair. 

Invisible voices may be external or internal ; they come from 
heaven, from neighboring houses, from the angles of a room, 
from the chimney, from wardrobes, from mattresses ; but they 
may also come from the head, the stomach, or any other import- 
ant organ. "Sir," said a madman to us one day, pointing to his 
stomach, "strange things pass there; I constantly hear a voice 

* Calmiel, art. Hallucination, p. 519, Dictionnaire, in 30 vols. 2d edition. 






HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 81 

that speaks to me, addresses to me menaces and insults;" and all 
the day he was leaning down to listen. 

Should buzzing in the ears be ranked amongst hallucinations, 
as some medical men think ? We think that this symptom, and 
others analogous to it, belong to illusions ; for in the greater 
number of cases there exists an arterial beating or some other 
organic modification that the insane person transforms into real 
sensations. 

Hallucinations of hearing are oftentimes isolated; but they 
may be combined with those of sight or of the other senses. 

Hallucinations of Sight. — In all times, these hallucinations 
have played an important part in the history of mankind, and 
to them has been more particularly attached the name of visions, 
whence the appellation of visionaries to those who are thus 
affected. Every nation, and every celebrated man, has felt their 
influence. In the Middle Ages, the belief in visions was general. 
Spirits haunted castles and cemeteries ; there was no one but 
had seen an apparition. 

At the present time, the north of Europe, and some of our 
provinces, manifest a belief in visions. Authors fill their pages 
with wonderful histories, which the ignorant skepticism of the 
eighteenth century had banished as old women's fables ; the 
more enlightened science of these days explains them naturally, 
giving them a destiny similar to the recitals of Herodotus and 
Marco Polo, which were at first well received, then for a long 
period rejected as fabulous, and now again receive their just 
appreciation. 

Hallucinations of sight, by their number and their frequency, 
hold the second rank among the singular aberrations of the 
human mind. 

Case XXXI. M. N., forty years of age, was suffering much 
domestic affliction. Like many others, he sought to drown his 
sorrows in wine. Several months before his disease, he became 
restless and strange. On the 30th of April, 184-, without more 
excess than common, he was taken with a febrile delirium, for 
which he was bled. Thirty leeches were placed behind his ears; 
which bled for twenty-four hours. By means of this and other 
suitable remedies, he enjoyed a brief respite ; but the symptoms 
of excitement recurred ; he uttered menaces and cries of terror, 
6 



82 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

and demanded his knife, to kill the intruders. In one of these 
crises he was brought to my establishment. 

On his entrance, I was struck with the wildness of his counte- 
nance ; his looks expressed fear and rage ; he was violently 
agitated, uttered menaces and cries, convinced that persons were 
hidden in his room, and under his bed; every instant he ex- 
claimed, "Where are they?" The next day he was put in the 
bath, where, according to the plan followed for many years in my 
establishment, he remained for eight hours, receiving the douche 
irrigation as in the treatment of fractures.* He incessantly 
inquired what it all meant, calling on the commissioner and the 
king's attorney, and demanding his liberty. 

Finding that the sight of the persons in attendance excited 
him greatly, I left him in complete solitude. During six days 
he was bathed, purged, vomited, and received but little nourish- 
ment. At the end of that time, he appeared calmer, and begged 
to see me in private. 

On being brought before me, he thus expressed himself : "Sir, 
you did right in conducting me into your establishment ; I was 
then highly exasperated ; I said and did the most foolish things ; 
my language against my wife was entirely senseless. I acknow- 
ledge that her conduct is excellent, and that I have nothing to 
reproach her with ; but if my brain was turned, it is no less true 
that it was caused by the scene I witnessed, and which I will 
describe to you : — 

"I was in the bath which was prescribed by the doctor, on 
account of my feverish excitement, when I saw, as plainly as I 
now see you, a man enter my apartment, entirely dressed in 
black. He looked attentively at me, then made grimaces in 
order to provoke me. Indignant at such conduct, I showed him, 
by my countenance, how much displeased I was ; he then 
approached the stove-pipe, seized it, and springing up disap- 
peared by the opening. I was quite astounded at this singular 
scene, when I saw three men come from under the bed : they 
advanced towards me, making the same gestures and grimaces as 
the first. I was furious, and loudly called for my knife, to kill 

* De Temploie des bains prolongees et des irrigations continues dans le 
traitement des formes aigues de la Folie, et en particulier de la Manie, par 
A. Brierre de Boismont. Memoire de TAcademie de Medecine, t. xiii. 
1848. 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 83 

them ; they mounted the pipe in the same way, and disappeared 
through the hole. I had never seen them before, but their faces 
are so engraven on my mind that I should recognize them any- 
where. Before they went, they filled my sheets and counter- 
pane with dirty vermin of all kinds.* I certainly was excited 
for a time, but I will stake my existence on the reality of these 
facts." 

The calm and cool manner in which Mr. N". recited this his- 
tory was at least as surprising as the circumstances. I made no 
observation on it, because in the course of events his cure was 
not far off, and I knew by experience that I should in vain have 
tried to disabuse him, and on the contrary might have irritated 
him. 

Some days afterwards, the conversation was renewed, and I 
thought it time to speak candidly to him on his hallucination. 
" Well," said he, "admitting that it is but a notion, am I not well 
enough to be allowed to return home, where I am really wanted ?" 
For four days previously, I had given him ten centigrammes of 
opium in a dose ; the only effect was to cause an abundant per- 
spiration. 

By the end of the month, Mr. M. was completely restored 
to reason. He acknowledged that he had been duped by an 
error, promising to avoid the causes that had led to his malady. 
He begged to remain another month, in order to go at once into 
the country. I saw him two years afterwards ; he was effectually 
cured. 

Hallucinations of sight may be infinitely varied, for, being 
most generally but a highly colored reflection of habitual 
thoughts, they take as many forms as there are individualities. 

Case XXXII. The amiable and learned Harrington, author of 
the Oceana, spoke very sensibly on every subject but that con- 
nected with his malady. When on this subject, he related, 
with the most lively faith in the world, that his vital spirits 
escaped from all his pores, in the shape of birds, flies, bees, etc. 
His friends said that he often amused them with accounts of good 
and evil genii that caused him great alarm. He defended his 
opinions so ably that his physician found it difficult to reply. 
He compared himself to Democritus, whose admirable discoveries 

* A. Brierre de Boismont, Biblioth^que des Practiciens, t. ix., Maladies 
M utU s, t. ix., Folie des Ivrognes, p. 478. ' 



84 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

in anatomy caused him to be looked on as a madman by his 
countrymen, until Hippocrates disabused them.* 

One of the most powerful arguments that has been advanced 
against the existence of external images in hallucination, is the 
weakening or loss of sight. Esquirol and M. Lelut have given 
several examples. It is incontrovertible that, in the cases cited 
below, the hallucinations were in the brain. 

Case XXXIII. An old man, who was more than eighty years 
of age when he died, never sat down to table, during the latter 
years of his life, without seeing a large party of guests around 
him, dressed according to the style of half a century before. 
This old man could only see very feebly with one eye ; he also 
wore a green shade. At different times he saw his own figure 
before him, which seemed to be reflected by the shade. 

Dr. Dewar, of Stirling, told Abercrombie of a very remarkable 
example of this kind of hallucination. The subject, entirely 
blind, never went into the street without seeing a little old 
woman in a red cloak, with a bill-headed cane. This apparition 
walked before her. The lady never saw it after having entered 
the house. f 

In the establishment of the Faubourg St. AntoineJ was a lady, 
eighty years of age, who had been blind for many years, and who 
every morning desired the windows and door of her room to be 

* British Biography, vol. v. p. 405 : Le Droit, 1850. 

f John Abercrombie, Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers, p. 
379, eleventh edition, London, 1842. 

% It was from this house that General Mallet escaped, at the time of the 
retreat from Moscow, who, for a short time, perilled the power of Napoleon. 
Some time previously, the General had made an attempt to escape, but was 
detected at the moment. Notwithstanding the entreaties of his family, Dr. 
Dubuisson, who knew the heavy responsibility that he incurred, gave in 
his report, which was placed amongst the government papers. Imme- 
diately on the arrest of Mallet, Dubuisson was seized. He was taken 
before the Minister of Police, who said angrily to him : "You have allowed 
the chief of the conspirators to escape; you have connived with him, and 
must be sent to a court-martial." "Sir," replied the Doctor, "it is the 
police who are in the wrong : I have done my duty. Summon the officer 
who has the inspection of our houses, and ask him if he did not receive a 
circumstantial report of the first attempt." The officer is sent for. "The 
gentleman is right," said he; "we forgot that." "You are fortunate," 
added the minister, turning towards M. Dubuisson; "without this report, 
you would have joined the conspirators on the plain of Grene lie 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 85 

opened, to let out the number of persons who filled it, and whose 
dress and manner she perfectly distinguished. 

Case XXXIV. An insane patient saw, on the right hand, 
against the wall of his cell, charming women, to whom he 
addressed by turns insults and compliments. This man was 
blind. After his death, M. Calmeil found atrophy of the two 
optic nerves to exist. 

An aged spinster, whose visions greatly excited her, struggled 
against a swarm of flying spectres, which she likened to human 
figures, who formed a thick cloud around her. At night, in 
order not to see these cruel shadows, she constantly covered 
herself with a mattress.* 

We read in the history of the Inquisition, by Llorente, that 
the possessed perceived devils in their bodies, who concealed 
themselves under different forms. We have frequently heard 
insane persons profess to see what was passing in their brain, 
their stomach, their intestines, and in their most delicate tissues; 
but if questions were pressed on them they gave only the 
strangest and most confused explanations, unless those parts 
of the body were known to them. Does not this trait bear re- 
semblance to magnetism, which, in a great many cases, gives 
only reminiscences or revelations more or less vague? 

Hallucinations of hearing and sight are often united ; we give 
an example taken from a collection of cases, whose authenticity 
was guaranteed to us by one of the physicians of Bethlem. 

Case XXXV. Some years ago, there was in Bedlam (Beth- 
lem) a madman of the name of Blake, nicknamed The Seer ; he 
believed profoundly in the reality of his visions ; he conversed 
with Michael Angelo, chatted with Moses, dined with Semiramis; 
there was nothing of charlatanism in his manner ; he was con- 
vinced. The past opened to him its dark portals ; the land of 
shadows lived for him. Whatever was grand, surprising, and 
celebrated came before Blake. 

This man had appointed himself painter to the spectres ; his 
paper and crayons were always before him to depict the faces 
and attitudes of his heroes, whom he did not evoke, but who 

* Calmeil, art. Hallucination, p. 526: Dictionnaire de Medecine, 2d 
edition, vol. xiv. 



86 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

flocked to liim for their portraits. Visitors could examine large 
volumes of these drawings, amongst which were portraits of 
the devil and his mother. " When I entered his cell," said the 
author of this relation, "he was drawing a girl, whose spectre, 
he said, had just appeared to him. 

"Edward III. was one of his most assiduous visitors. In 
acknowledgment of the condescension of the monarch, he had 
painted his portrait in oil in three sittings. I questioned him 
in a manner intended to puzzle him ; but his replies were naive 
and unembarrassed in manner. 

" 'Are these gentlemen announced ? Do they send you their 
cards V ' No, but I know them as soon as they appear. I did 
not expect Mark Antony last night, but I recognized the Roman 
as soon as he entered.' 

" 'At what hour do your illustrious guests visit you?' 'At one; 
sometimes their visits are long, sometimes short. I saw that 
poor Job the day before yesterday ; he only stayed two minutes ; 
I had scarcely time to make a sketch, which I afterwards copied 
in aquafortis — But hush — here is Richard III.' 'Where do you 
see him?' 'Opposite to you, on the other side of the table; it is 
his first visit.' 'How do you know his name?' 'My spirit recog- 
nizes him; I do not know how.' 'What countenance has he?' 
; Harsh, but handsome ; I only as yet see his profile. Now he is 
three quarters. Ah! now he turns towards me; he is terrible 
to look on.' 

" 'Can you question him?' 'Certainly; what do you wish to 
ask?' 'If he can justify the murders he committed during his life.' 
'Your question has already reached him; my soul holds converse 
with his by intuition and magnetism. We do not require words.' 
'What is the reply of his majesty?' 'This; but in more words 
than he conveyed it to me. You would not understand the 
spirit language. He says that what you call murder and car- 
nage is nothing ; that to slaughter fifteen or twenty thousand 
men does them no harm ; that the mortal part of their being is 
not only preserved, but passes into a better world ; and that the 
murdered man who should reproach his assassin would be guilty 
of ingratitude, since the latter has only procured his entrance 
into a more perfect existence. But leave me; he stands in a 
good position now ; and if you say a word, he will go.' 



HALLUCINATIONS OP INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 87 

"Blake is a large man, pale, talks well and really eloquently, 
and has talent in engraving and designing."* 

Spinello, in painting the fall of the bad angels, represented 
Lucifer under an aspect so horrible, that, frightened at his own 
work, he had incessantly before his eyes the figure of the devil, 
who reproached him for the dreadful form he had given him in 
his picture. f 

We may here refer to the case of Berbiguier de Terre 
Neuve du Thym, surnamed the Scourge of Hobgoblins, who pub- 
lished his hallucinations in three large volumes ; % we shall have 
occasion to speak of them soon in treating of other hallucina- 
tions. 

Case XXXYI. A gentleman, aged thirty-five, active, and in 
good health, living near London, had for five weeks complained 
of a slight headache. He was rather feverish, and neglected his 
avocations and his family. He had been cupped, and had taken 
some medicine, when he received a visit from Dr. Arnold, of 
Camberwell, by whose advice he was placed in an asylum, where 
he passed two years ; his delirious fancies lessened by degrees, 
until he was restored to his family. 

The details which he has given of his malady are so interest- 
ing that we do not hesitate to repeat them almost verbatim. 
" One afternoon in the month of May," says this gentleman, 
"feeling unwell, and little disposed for business, I determined to 
take a walk in the city, to divert myself. Having reached St. 
Paul's churchyard, I stopped at the print-shop of Carrington 
and Bowles to look at some engravings of the Cathedral. I had 
been there but a short time, when an old gentleman, small, 
serious-looking, and dressed in brown, also stopped to examine 
them. Our eyes by chance meeting, he commenced a conversa- 
tion, admired the view from St. Paul's, related several anecdotes 
of the architect, Sir Christopher Wren, and asked if I had ever 
been in the dome. 

"On my replying in the negative, and finding that I had not 
dined, he proposed to repair to a neighboring tavern, and said 

* British Review, July, 1803, p. 184. 
f Tissot, Serm. inaug. de litteratum valetudine, p. 20. 
% Les Farfadots, ou tous les Demons ne sont pas de Pautre monde, par 
Berbiguier de Terre Neuve du Thym., 3 vols, in 8vo. Paris, 1821. 



88 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

that, after the repast, he would accompany me to St. Paul's ; 
the day, he added, was magnificent for the view, and, as he was 
familiar with the place, he would point out all the objects of 
interest. The politeness of the old gentleman induced me to 
accept his invitation, and we went to a tavern, in a dark alley, 
the name of which I do not remember. 

"After a hasty dinner, we mounted to the ball which is placed 
immediately under the cross, and we entered it alone. We 
had been there some minutes admiring the superb panorama be- 
fore us, when the old gentleman drew from a side-pocket of his 
coat an instrument that resembled a compass, and on which some 
curious figures were engraved; he murmured some unintelligible 
words, and placed it in the centre of the ball. 

"I was seized with a violent trembling and a kind of horror, 
which greatly increased on his offer to show me, if I wished, a 
distant friend, and, also, what he was at that moment doing. — 
My father had long been ill, and I had not been to see him for 
some weeks ; the sudden wish to see him overcame all my scru- 
ples. No sooner had I formed this wish than I saw my father 
in a mirror ; he was reclining in a chair, taking his usual nap. 
As I had somewhat doubted the power of the old gentleman, I 
was frozen with terror, and feeling very ill, begged him instantly 
to descend. He complied ; and, on parting under the north por- 
tico, he said, ' Remember, that you are the slave of the man of 
the mirror.' I returned home, at night, unhappy, restless, and 
fearful, and full of thoughts of the stranger ; for the last three 
months, I have never ceased to feel his power." 

Dr. Arnold asked the patient in what manner the man of the 
mirror exercised his influence over him. Throwing a suspicious 
glance on the doctor, he took him by the arm, led him through 
two or three rooms, and at length into the garden, when he ex- 
claimed : " It is useless ; nothing can hide us from him, for every 
place is open to him ; he sees and hears us now." 

"I requested him," continued Dr. Arnold, "to show me the 
mysterious individual who saw and heard us. He replied, with 
much agitation, 'Have I not told you that he lives in the ball 
under the cross of St. Paul's, that he only comes down to walk 
in the churchyard, and to go and dine in the dark alley? 
Since that fatal meeting with the necromancer, for I cannot 
call him by any other name, he constantly attracts me within his 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 89 

mirror, sees me thus at all hours in the day, and reads my most 
secret thoughts ; I have the terrible consciousness that no act of 
my life escapes his knowledge, and that there is no spot in which 

I can be hidden from him.' To my observation that the darkness 
of night ought to protect him against his machinations, he replied, 

I I know what you would say; but you are wrong. I have only 
spoken to you of the mirror ; but in a corner of the building 
the magician showed me a great clock, and I distinctly heard 
the sounds that came from it, and those that entered ; it was a 
confused medley of laughter, cries of anger, of despair, and, as 
I listened in great terror, he said, "It is my organ of hearing." 
This great clock has communication with all the clocks that are 
in the hieroglyphic circle. By this means I hear the words of 
all those under my supervision.' 

"As I gazed on the patient with surprise, he continued : 
' 1 have not told you all ; this necromancer practises his sorceries 
by means of hieroglyphics on the walls and houses, and he spreads 
his rod of fire over those whom he has inclosed in his circle of 
hieroglyphics, and who are the objects of his constant hatred.' 
I begged him to explain to me these hieroglyphics, and how he 
saw them. ' They are,' he answered, * signs and symbols that 
you, in your ignorance of their real meaning, have read thus : 
Day and Martin, and Warren 's Blacking [probably handbills]. 
You are in error. These signs are the cabalistic characters that 
he traces to intimate the limits of his empire, and to prevent the 
escape of his captives. What fatigues I have undergone to 
withdraw myself from his terrible influence ! I once walked three 
days and three nights, until I fell, exhausted and breathless, 
against a wall, and slept. On waking, I saw the fatal letters, 
and felt that I was completely in his power.' "* 

No tase of hallucination can be more coherent and calculated 
to bring conviction to the minds of those uninitiated in this singu- 
lar phenomenon, than the one just stated by Prichard. Doubt- 
less, in the Middle Ages, this patient would have been supposed 
to be possessed, and have been subjected to the ceremonies of ex- 
orcism. I am persuaded that, in our days, such a history would 
find many believers. Authentic facts are related by persons of 

* A Treatise on Insanity, and other Disorders affecting the Mind, by 
James Cowles Prichard, p. 455, London, 1835. 



90 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

veracity, of apparitions that had revealed to them extraordinary 
things. The circumstantial details into which they entered, and 
the air of truth they assumed, dispelled all doubts. 

It is probable that this individual had visited St. Paul's ; but, 
seized with insanity, certain recollections arose, were fantasti- 
cally grouped, highly colored, and imagined, until they appeared 
realities to the sight. 

M. Lelut, in a paper on purely sensorial madness, has pub- 
lished several facts, amongst which the following appears to bear 
on our subject : — 

Case XXXVII. R. was born of parents without fortune ; 
his education was far from being religious. At fourteen, he might 
have obtained favors from a young girl, but denied himself on 
thinking of God. In fact, that thought seemed to have employed 
him from childhood. At eighteen, his understanding seemed to 
enlarge, and all the exterior phenomena of the world appeared 
unveiled to his sight ; he saw all creation, as it were, in a coup 
d'oeil. The sight of a corrupt world saddened him more and 
more ; that did not, however, prevent his learning the trade of 
a wheelwright, by which he afterwards gained a livelihood. His 
love for changing his location and acquaintances increased; he 
seemed invariably driven towards a result unknown to himself; 
he thought that God called him somewhere. 

In 1825, the jubilee took place. R. took part in it, fervently, 
and joined, in preaching, with the most eloquent missionaries. 
At that time his first revelations took place ; it appeared to him 
that, from the epigastrium, where he always felt a sensation of 
heat, words were very distinctly pronounced, not such as sound 
on the ear, but very easily distinguished from them. These 
words, which formed prophecies and parables, plunged R. into 
ecstasies. His appetite failed, sleep vanished, and he passed the 
nights in prayer. 

During one of these excited nights, R. suddenly saw a lu- 
minous disk as large, but not so bright, as the sun, appear in 
the clouds ; a voice proceeded from the disk that said : " The 
children whom I bless, shall be blessed ; but those whom I curse, 
shall be cursed to the third and fourth generation." R., who 
recognized the voice of God, entered into communication with 
the uncreated, addressing many questions which were not all 
replied to. The conversation lasted three-quarters of an hour. 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 91 

R. began to understand what were God's intentions towards 
him ; finally, the Deity told him to go to rest. 

The words pronounced from the epigastrium were very different 
from those proceeding from the vision. In the latter, the words 
precisely resembled those which are orally heard, which was not 
the case with the words (epigastric) of the revelations. The 
vision decided the fate of R. ; he was the Messiah, who should 
come, at the end of time, to draw all nations to the same belief, 
and to prepare the last judgment. It was in this Quality that 
he commenced prophesying to his fellow-workmen, and that he 
requested audiences with the Abbe' M., a priest of Charles the 
Tenth's court, and with the Archbishop of Paris. Being unable 
to succeed in the latter point, he, one day during mass, scaled 
the grating of the metropolitan choir, in order, he said, to be 
arrested, that he might thus make known the plans he could not 
otherwise communicate. He had his wish. He was taken to 
the police-office. 

If we allow the reality of R.'s visions, then, indeed, he is no 
madman — but what he pretends to be, the Messiah. Prior to his 
vision — prior to his greatest revelations, he did not know the 
Scriptures ; it was only subsequently that he studied them, and 
very artfully applied them to his belief, even the Apocalypse, in 
which he found a clear meaning. " Jesus Christ," said he, " is the 
Son of God ; he came to prepare the way, but he is not the 
Messiah ; that is nowhere written." When he spoke of the mis- 
ery reserved for the wicked at the end of time, his eyes over- 
flowed with tears ; he sighed over their future torments, and 
then his countenance assumed an elevated expression, not a little 
extraordinary. 

He believed in the evil spirit, and spoke of him with pain; he 
had a singular theory of hell. " Thither," said he, "go all the 
sounds that are lost on earth, all the lights and fires that vanish 
in the air; but punishments will not be eternal, at least for those 
who were placed there before the last judgment." 

At the end of fourteen months, he was found so disposed to 
postpone, until a more favorable time, his projects of reform 
that, under a regular certificate, he was restored to society.* 

* Observations sur la Folie sensoriale, par Lelut, p. 284. Du Demon 
de Socrate, 1 vol. in 8vo., 1834. 



92 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

This case may be placed amongst those cited to establish the 
analogy which exists between hallucinated persons and the found- 
ers of religion. However painful to humanity may be the opinion 
of those who represent it as touched with madness relative to 
many questions of a social nature, and with respect to the reali- 
zation of thoughts which appear to us, and to others, the concep- 
tions of genius, we believe that this apparent parity should be 
opposed by more direct reasons. We do not discover in R. that 
strong will, logical reasoning, and fixity of purpose that belong 
to those having a providential mission. His was a weak mind 
inflamed with religious ideas, which, like many of that temper, he 
exaggerated, until, finally, all his actions had reference thereto. 
Instead of marching at the head of his ideas, commanding them 
in person, being their promoter, their standard, he could neither 
originate nor develop them; they drew him along, or, rather, 
they absorbed him. The man of genius controls and directs his 
idea, and makes it fruitful. The madman has no power over 
his ; he follows it as its shadow, and obeys all its caprices. In 
short, one is the king of his idea, the other the slave. 

In the case of R., there are multiplied proofs of madness. 
It is God who tells him to go to bed; it is his stomach that 
speaks to him. Scaling the grating of the cathedral was the 
act of a madman ; had he been master of himself, he would have 
known that it would lead to the police- office and the madhouse. 
Thence he proved that he no longer looked sanely on things, 
and that several of his intellectual faculties were injured. 

Nevertheless, we have always observed, in the great number 
of cases of hallucination that have come under our notice 
during more than twenty years, that, by the side of a well- 
sustained reasoning, which appeared the result of an idea, was 
placed an incoherent word or a whimsical act — in a word, the 
seed of madness. 

Hallucinations of the Touch. — These have been considered 
very difficult to study, because they have been confounded with 
neuralgic and visceral affections ; but there are doubtless some 
hallucinated quite capable of describing their sensations, who 
speak confidently of having been pinched and struck, and who 
had received electric shocks on various parts of the body. 
Latterly we examined, in company with Messrs. Foville, Mi- 
chon, and Seguin, a young man who declared that magnetizers 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 93 

were every moment darting magnetic fluid into his breast, his 
back, and arms, and that he sensibly felt the contact of that 
agent. He had no neuralgic affection. 

Case XXXVIII. Mathews, whose curious case Haslam has 
described in a pamphlet, believed himself the victim of a troop 
of wretches, living in an obscure place near London. These 
persecutors, by their talents in pneumatic chemistry, had the 
power to inflict on him several kinds of torture. At one time, 
they held tight the fibres of his tongue ; at another, they spread 
a veil over his brain, and thus intercepted the communication 
between his heart and mind. By the aid of a magnetic fluid, they 
bound him nearly to suffocation, introduced gas into his skull, 
stretched his brain, distended his nerves, and threw all his 
thoughts into disorder. In order to discover by what means 
these invisible tormentors made him thus suffer, he invented a 
strange machine, the design of which he exhibited. The assas- 
sins, as he called them, had similar machines in a number of 
different places, which they used for the purpose of tormenting 
persons, or making them act as they chose.* 

M. Calmeil reports the case of a veteran who felt himself 
every night nailed in a cofiin, and carried in men's arms, by a 
subterranean road, from Charenton to Yincennes, where a 
funeral service was chanted in the chapel of the chateau. The 
same invisible persons brought him back, and placed him on his 
bed. 

We attended an Englishman who thought he was carried off at 
night, to distant countries — to the East, to Cairo, to London ; he 
complained of the ill treatment he received from the agents who 
were charged with the mission. He declared that they bound 
his arms and his neck, and covered him with bruises. The idea 
made him very unhappy. Madame D. frequently pointed out 
imaginary marks of blows, which were given her during the 
night by individuals who wished to do her violence. In by- 
gone days, the devil would have been accused of the crime ; in 
this case, we see only an exaggerated physical fact, which many 
can appreciate. Sorcerers rode to their place of rendezvous on 
a broom-handle, on a he-goat, or a hairy man ; they were con- 

* Illustrations of Madness, exhibiting a Singular Case of Insanity, by 
John Haslam, London, 1843. 



94 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

scious of the movement. The sensation of flying is rather com- 
mon. Frequently in dreams, we feel ourselves borne along with 
the rapidity of an arrow ; we accomplish great distances, just 
lightly touching the ground. We have noticed this fact in a 
literary man of our acquaintance, whom we several times found 
with fixed eyes, and who said to us, " I am flying ; do not stop 
me!" On returning to himself, he described his sensations; and 
it seemed to him that he really had flown. This sensation was 
experienced so far back as the times of St. Jerome, who relates 
that frequently in his dreams, he felt himself flying over mount- 
ains, seas, &c* 

Madame D'Arnim, Goethe's friend, in speaking of this fact, 
says : "I was certain that I flew, and floated in the air. By a 
simple elastic pressure of the point of the toe, I was in the air. 
I floated silently and deliciously at two or three feet above the 
earth ; I alighted, mounted again ; I flew from side to side, and 
then returned. A few days after, I was taken with fever ; I 
went to bed and slept. It happened two weeks after I was con- 
fined."f 

The strange tactile sensations noticed in many insane persons 
appear to us rather to belong to hypochondriacal illusions. 

Amongst the remarkable cases of hallucination of touch, we 
must not omit Berbiguier, who thought that goblins were con- 
tinually moving over his body, and fatigued him so much that 
he was obliged to sit down. These invisible enemies travelled 
over him day and night, and their odor was so bad as nearly to 
suffocate him. To defend himself against their power, he fan- 
cied that he adroitly seized them under his linen, fixed them to 
his mattress with millions of pins, or put them into bottles.J 

Hallucinations of Smell. — It is stated that these may exhibit 
themselves at the commencement of all cases of insanity, and 
especially in partial delirium. It has been remarked that, 
while saints perfume, devils infect an apartment. Hallucinations 
of smell, like those of taste, very seldom exist alone ; they are 
combined with those of sight, hearing, and touch. They are 
less frequent than hallucinations of the other senses. 

* Saint Jerome, Polemique, c. Kufin, liv. i. Pantheon litteraire. 
f Correspondence de Goethe et de Bettina, translated by M. Sebast. 
Albin, t. i. p. 68. 
% Berbiguier, ojp. cit. vol. i. p. 126, et se%. 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 95 

Deranged persons, who experience these hallucinations, com- 
plain of being pursued by offensive effluvias, or they believe they 
inhale the most delicious perfumes, whilst in truth there is no 
scent near them; some, indeed, before their attack, are de- 
prived of smell. An insane woman declares that there exist 
under the Salpe*triere (an insane hospital), vaults, in which a 
number of men and women are strangled ; every day she per- 
ceives a horrible smell arising from the decomposition of all 
these bodies buried under ground.* We have, in our establish- 
ment, a lady, who, after attempting to strangle herself, per- 
ceived everywhere the smell of coal ; she stopped up her nose, 
inhaled vinegar, etc. This scent followed her constantly. M. 
Esquirol reports a similar case. 

Hallucinations of Taste. — These are not more common than 
the preceding. The patients, especially those who are in the 
first stage of madness with general paralysis, express delight 
at the good fare they have had ; praise the flavor of the dishes, 
and the aroma of the wines, when really they have tasted nothing. 
A lady, who had been noted for her intelligence, passed days in 
tasting imaginary dishes. Sometimes the impressions are dis- 
tressing ; they eat raw flesh, chew arsenic, or devour earth ; sul- 
phur and flames play round their mouths. Others swallow 
nectar and ambrosia, f 

Hallucinations, unaccompanied by one of these principal forms 
of madness, are rare, and it may be said that, in this respect, 
they have numerous points of correspondence with pure mono- 
mania. Almost always, in fact, we notice some disorder of the 
intellect, of the affections, or of the propensities, &c. We will 
furnish three examples, presented by Esquirol, as cases of simple 
hallucination. One of these subjects expresses himself in suit- 
able and choice terms on religion and the miracles, but, during 
this serious conversation, depicts a host of strange objects. 
Another, who has only hallucinations of hearing, has a confused 
perception of the circumstances which surround him, but does 
not suitably appreciate persons, things, or events. A third, 
after having written several pages glowing with enthusiasm, and 
exceedingly well arranged, adds that "Jesus Christ is coming." 

* L61ut, op. cit. 

f Esquirol, Des Maladies Ment. t. i. p. 198, etc. 



96 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Experience has proved, without question, that hallucinations 
may be manifested in those who have no delirium ; but they are 
one of the elements of delirium most frequently met with in 
mental alienation, in a certain number of nervous diseases, in 
several inflammatory affections, and in some severe fevers. 

Recapitulation.— In hallucinations compatible with reason, 
the error is almost always acknowledged, or, if it escape atten- 
tion, it exercises no influence on the conduct. In hallucinations 
which have the characteristic of insanity, the actions, in an 
immense majority of cases, are the consequences of morbid sen- 
sations, so convinced is the madman of their reality. 

Of all hallucinations, those of hearing are the most common, 
exceeding the others by about sixty-six per cent. The weaken- 
ing, or the entire privation of the sen^e is no obstacle to their 
production. This characteristic completely distinguishes them 
from illusions. 

Hallucinations of hearing usually come from without ; but 
they sometimes are seated in the interior of the body ; they are 
often isolated ; they may be combined with hallucinations of 
sight, and less frequently with those of the other senses. 

Hallucinations of sight are those which have .attracted most 
attention. With these are associated the curious phenomena of 
visions. In all times, visionaries have played an important part 
in history. These hallucinations, being only a colored reflection 
of the thoughts habitual to the individual, may be infinitely 
varied, and assume as many forms as there are 'individuals. 
Their production does not depend on the integrity of the sense 
of sight, since the blind are thus affected. The hallucinated be- 
lieve they can see within their bodies, which is the case also with 
those who are magnetized, and with somnambulists. Hallucina- 
tions of hearing are often associated with those of sight ; and 
from their union the most singular phenomena arise. 

Hallucinations of the touch are less distinct than the preced- 
ing, because they are often confounded with neuralgic and vis- 
ceral illusions. Well-attested facts place this position beyond 
doubt. 

Hallucinations of smell and taste come after the preceding, 
with respect to frequency ; those of smell may be observed at 
the commencement of all kinds of insanity. These hallucina- 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 97 

tions are scarcely ever isolated ; they are associated with others, 
and especially with illusions. 

Hallucinations without complication are rare; they are almost 
always linked with one of the forms of madness. 

SECT. II.— GENERAL HALLUCINATIONS. 

Hallucinations of all the senses combined appear rare. Hal- 
lucinations of hearing and of sight have often been confounded 
with the illusions of touch, of taste, and of smell. Analogy and 
reasoning, however, prove that they may exist ; and observation 
leaves no doubt on the matter. 

It is also probable that, on" closely questioning patients, hallu- 
cinations of all the senses may be proved to be more frequent 
than they are believed to be. 

From many curious facts of this nature, we select the follow- 
ing :— ' 

Case XXXIX. Mademoiselle , forty years of age, very 

nervous, and consequently very impressible, has always been 
extremely flighty. In her youth she could never apply herself 
to any serious study, so that the doctors recommended her pa- 
rents to direct her attention to gymnastic exercises. This lady 
has not had any children. She is comfortably situated in life, 
her parents in good health, and of sound mind ; but she has a 
brother whose situation greatly resembles her own. Her appear- 
ance indicates health ; her hair is of a chestnut color ; she has a 
good complexion, and is moderately stout. 

About ten years ago, she felt the first symptoms of the malady 
which now afflicts her. She saw the most fantastic personages. 
Her visual aberrations did not prevent her from attending to 
her occupations. Irregular menstruation, the other functions 
healthy. In six months, the hallucinations, which until then had 
been endurable, occurring, as they did, at prolonged intervals, 
increased. Sight was no longer the only sense that was injured ; 
all the other senses were, by turns, impaired. The most palpable 
derangement was in the sense of hearing. She heard voices 
every instant proceeding from her stomach. These voices greatly 
tormented her ; they directed all her actions, and gave notice of 
what passed within her. They gave her information of her com- 
7 



98 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

plaints ; and she could then prescribe the medicines that she 
appeared to require. 

The voices gave her very clear information concerning the 
character and wishes of different persons, of whom she could 
reveal very curious particulars. She would then express herself 
in much choicer language than was her wont ; but, for power, 
facility, and richness of expression, she was indebted to the 
voices within her, for, when uninfluenced by them, she spoke 
with much more simplicity. The voices frequently conversed 
on subjects of an elevated character ; on geography, grammar, 
and rhetoric; and they corrected her when she expressed herself 
badly, pointing out the faults she had committed. 

The voices told her strange things. One day they made her 
believe that she was possessed, which was the more surprising 
because she was not brought up with superstitious notions. She 
thereupon sought a priest to exorcise her. Since that time, her 
ideas on eternity and future woes have been distressing, and 
throw her into the deepest despair. The voices once revealed to 
her that she would become a queen, and play a great part on the 
theatre of the world. Eor several months she kept this revela- 
tion to herself, expecting its realization ; but, as this did not 
occur, she perceived that the voices had been deceiving her. 

Most generally they hold the most singular, whimsical, and 
abominable conversations ; she cannot resist them, except when 
they alter their tone to tell her comical things that make her 
laugh. She hears them joke and laugh ; they then assail her 
more violently than ever, like harpies, spoiling all they touch. 
If she wishes to drink a glass of sugared-water, they tell her the 
water is poisoned, and, for several hours, she is in great terror. 
They are constantly urging her to drown herself, but she feels 
an inward resistance to their promptings, and has a great dread 
of yielding to the temptation. 

If she is walking, the voices cry out to her, when a well- 
dressed woman is passing, that she smells of musk, of which she 
has a horror ; or, if a gentleman passes her, she smells tobacco, 
although she is aware that the smells are only imaginary. 

She frequently has strange visions ; her room is filled with 
people ; figures of all kinds, and numerous processions, pass be- 
fore her ; or she sees individuals who only have half a face, a 
profile, or an eye ; . others, who are big, little, deformed, and 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 99 

assume the most grotesque shapes. At other times she sees her 
eye, which has been taken out, rolling on before her. 

The food she eats is infected ; everything has lost its natural 
flavor ; or she seems to swallow vinegar, and Gruyere cheese, 
which she detests. If she touches a dish, the voices frequently 
give it one of those flavors, to prevent her partaking of it. 

When walking, she feels herself drenched with water ; the cold 
liquid pierces her through ; she then wipes her wet clothes with 
her hands. 

This lady says she knows that these voices proceed from a 
nervous affection ; but they are too powerful for her judgment ; 
they overpower and rule it. So great is their power, that they 
oblige her to go wherever they wish ; they told her, some months 
since, to go to Paris, and consult some celebrated physicians. 
She long resisted this prompting, because she believed such a 
course to be useless ; finally, she came to Professor Fouquier, 
who recommended blistering, and means which could only have 
an injurious effect. She required warm and cold baths, and 
plenty of good Bordeaux wine. Yesterday, the voices told her 
to go to Bercy for some wine. Having traversed Paris to reach 
the place, the voices told her that the wine was good for nothing. 

The voices desired her to take a bath, promising to be quiet ; 
but, no sooner had she entered it, than they set up such a deafen- 
ing uproar that she was obliged instantly to leave it. 

They will no longer let her speak ; they confuse her ideas ; 
she finds it difficult to express herself. In fact, she stammers, 
repeats her words, and hesitates ; but she knows her condition ; 
and, in order to counteract the influence of the voices, she fixes 
her eyes on those to whom she would speak, in order that they 
may read there what she cannot clearly express. 

She is often aware that the voices make her act unreasonably; 
she tries to oppose their wishes, but they persist, and force her 
obedieDce ; their power is irresistible. 

This lady, who was introduced to us by M. Fouquier, wished 
to enter our asylum, in order that the physicians should study 
her case, and open her body after death. 

However, " she knows that her body, as well as her brain, is 
full of air ; and, for fifteen years, her spinal marrow has been 
dried up. and destroyed." After this information, she adds : "I 
know that my case is one of real monomania; but the voices are 



100 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

stronger than my will. I know that everything will terminate 
badly ; but I wish to be under treatment ; it is impossible for me 
to remain quiet." 

What curious reflections are suggested by this remarkable 
case ! Here the senses are first all disordered, then the mind ; 
there is a struggle between the intellect and the revolted senses; 
a momentary consciousness that all is illusion ; then comes the 
triumph of these same senses over reason — overpowering the will, 
that vainly combats the impelling force. Is there, in fact, a sight 
more deserving philosophical study than the case presented by 
this woman, who, knowing that her senses mislead her, and that 
she is the sport of fancies, yet cannot escape their influence ? 

Constantly deceived, and certain that she always will be de- 
ceived, still, she is not less obedient to the voices that direct her; 
and goes wheresoever they command. 

This novel manifestation of the principle of duality, by virtue 
of which this afflicted person, borne down by railleries, jokes, 
menaces, and horrible proposals, and ready to yield to despair, 
suddenly finds herself consoled by kind and encouraging words, is 
a psychological fact, which deserves the attention of the faculty. 
It would seem as though a good and a bad spirit were each draw- 
ing her to itself. During ten years that she has been in this 
pathological condition, she has not ceased to attend to her affairs ; 
she directs the management of her property, attends to all the 
duties of social life ; and, although, for the space of six years, 
her false impressions have not left her a moment of peace, her 
habits are unchanged, though she appears to know intuitively 
that her reason is about to fail, and seeks consolation in the 
advice which she cannot follow. 

This lady's case is no less interesting as regards legal medi- 
cine and civil law. The hallucination that torments her, and 
the falsity of which she almost always acknowledges, but to which 
she is obliged to yield, because its power is stronger than her 
will, leads her to actions which have no definite aim. The voices 
tempt her to commit suicide, and inspire her with many other 
ideas, to which, being driven beyond resistance, she is forced to 
yield. This is quite a new fact in the psychological history of 
man ; it gives the key to a number of actions and oddities, which, 
from the known character and manners of the parties, are other- 
wise inexplicable. The greater our range of observation has ex- 



HALLUCINATIONS OF INSANITY IN ITS SIMPLE STATE. 101 

tended, the more have we become convinced that the world con- 
tains many madmen, who, from some reason or another, have 
never sought medical relief, and whose derangement of mind has 
never been noticed by those about them. Well, these individuals 
quarrel, provoke duels, insult, strike, assassinate, or commit sui- 
cide, because they have obeyed voices, commands, and impulses, 
which they cannot resist. 

Among the numerous cases that I have collected, the following 
appears, for several reasons, to be interesting : — 

Case XL. A rich man lived alone in a large house that be- 
longed to him. His style of living was not at all suitable to the 
fortune that he was known to possess. He dressed almost in 
rags, and lived in the most parsimonious manner. No one was 
allowed to enter his house. However strange his conduct, he 
did nothing worthy of blame, and the world was left to its con- 
jectures. Information was at length obtained that his resources 
were exhausted, and that he owed heavy sums on his house. He 
was finally obliged to sell it. His ruin was a mystery. Misan- 
thropical and taciturn, he shunned all questions. 

The circumstance was forgotten, when, one day, the poor 
wretch presented himself to the new proprietor; he was pale and 
agitated, but his eyes shone with a strange brilliancy. " Sir," 
said he, " I know where the gold that I possessed is, and where 
the fortune is that I have lost. A voice revealed to me that a 
misfortune would take all from me, and reduce me to misery ; 
and that, to avoid this catastrophe, I must conceal my riches. I 
followed the advice. Income, furniture, house, all was converted 
into gold, and buried in a place unknown to any one. Then I 
no longer heard the voice. My head became a chaos of ideas ; 
I had only a glimmering light now and then. This morning I 
heard the voice again : 'You are ignorant,' it said, 'where your 
gold is, but I will tell you. By my advice you threw it into the 
well.' Pray, sir, have search made ; all my riches are there." 
They attempted to console him ; promised to do what he desired ; 
but it would require time and workmen. They made him com- 
prehend that such an operation required preparations that could 
not be done in a hurry. He retired. In a few days he returned 
to inquire the result of the search. He was told that they had 
found nothing ! ! ! He sighed deeply, pronounced a few inco- 



102 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

herent words, and in a few days unquestionable insanity put an 
end to his useless regrets. 

It may be asked whether, in the state of mind in which the 
patient was whose history we have related, he was capable of 
making a will. 

This is a very difficult question ; but its solution is not an im- 
possibility. When the conduct of the individual does not depart 
from received usages, when it is not controlled by one of those 
false ideas that make him hate his relatives and friends without 
any motive, and when he regulates his expenses prudently, we 
do not think that whimsical actions, or words, the results of an 
erroneous belief, but having no influence on the prominent acts 
of his life, should deprive a person of his civil liberties, and the 
power of making his will. We will return to this subject when 
we examine hallucinations in a medico-legal point of view. 

Recapitulation. — Hallucinations of all the senses are more 
rare than hallucinations of one, two, or three of the senses. 

Hallucinations sometimes occur alone, but, more generally, 
they are combined with illusions, or with some of the forms of 
madness. 

The characteristics of madness, already appreciable in simply 
isolated hallucinations, are more marked in general hallucinations. 

In isolated and general hallucinations may be found the ex- 
planation of many incomprehensible actions. 

General hallucinations would be a powerful argument in favor 
of Berkeley's hypothesis, if a pathological state could serve to 
establish a physiological principle. 

Hallucinations of all the senses might appear to be more fre- 
quently exhibited, if they were not often mistaken for illusions 
of sight, of hearing, and of touch. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ON HALLUCINATIONS AS CONNECTED WITH ILLUSIONS. 

Frequency of illusions — Opinions relative to the errors of the senses — Charac- 
teristics by which illusions and hallucinations are distinguished — Opinions of 
MM. Calmeil, Aubanel, and Dechambre ; their concurrence — Peculiar charac- 
teristics of illusions — Internal hallucinations allied with sensations of hypo- 
chondriacs — Illusions are observed both in a healthy and a morbid state — 
Illusions of hearing and of sight — Causes — Illusions of sight sometimes epi- 
demic — Aerial illusions — Causes of public illusions — Illusions of hearing — 
Motives for the chapter — Illusions may precede, accompany, or succeed 
hallucinations — Illusions may be isolated or general — Illusions very capricious — 
Illusions, like hallucinations, may induce the commission of reprehensible acts — 
Illusions of the touch, of the smell, of the taste — Their influence on the con- 
duct of madmen — Illusions almost always accompany hallucinations — Reca- 
pitulation. 

Nothing is more common with the insane, and especially with 
maniacs, than to mistake one person for another, and to take an 
object for what it is not. Such mistakes are frequent ; so that 
the story of a windmill metamorphosed into a giant is a tale 
appropriate for all times. These errors of the senses are not 
confined to the deranged. They exist equally among men of 
the most healthy minds ; but judgment and experience correct 
their false notions. In the eighteenth century, it was established 
in the schools of philosophy that our senses deceive us, and that 
we cannot place any reliance upon them. 

It requires, however, but little reflection to convince us that 
the senses faithfully report all that makes an impression on them. 
Their office is to tell us that there exists such and such a cause 
in the body, such or such a quality that produces in us such or 
such a sensation, but not to tell us the nature of that cause or 
that quality. Thus the only proper object of sight is the colored 
expanse. In seeking to arrive at a knowledge of the form and 



104 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

distance of objects,* we form a conjectural judgment. This 
judgment, in itself, no more forms a part of the evidence of the 
sense of sight, than the judgments which we form relative to 
sounds that the ear hears, and in relation to the nature and dis- 
tance of sonorous bodies whence those sounds emanate, form a 
part of the testimony of the sense of hearing. Thus, to speak 
correctly, our senses never deceive us ; but we deceive ourselves 
through the judgments we form concerning the testimony of our 
senses. 

When Esquirol published his Memoires sur les Illusions, he 
pointed out wherein illusions differ from hallucinations. The 
characteristic, which appears to us the most decisive, is the ab- 
sence of an exterior body in hallucinations ; whilst illusions re- 
quire a tangible basis. A man declares that you are a cat, or 
Napoleon, or a well-known orator ; he sees fighting armies in the 
clouds — angels who blow the trumpet ; that man is a visionary. 
But if, in the quiet of night, he hears voices addressing him ; if, 
in the most intense darkness, he sees persons that none but him- 
self can perceive, he is hallucinated. The privation of the 
sense of sight or hearing presents no impediment to halluci- 
nation, whilst it is an obstacle to illusion. 

M. Dechambre does not consider that any argument has been 
adduced sufficiently conclusive to justify Esquirol's distinction 
between hallucinations and illusions. He says that the halluci- 
nist who hears a voice speaking to him, and the visionary who 
thinks the friend standing before him is an ox or a horned devil, 
belong to the same category. With the one, as with the other, 
the brain is diseased — not the organ of sight or hearing, f 

There is no doubt that the lesion that produces these two 
morbid phenomena exists in the brain ; but it may be said that 
their progress is inverse — for, whilst hallucination seems to start 
from the nerve to form an outward image, illusion follows a di- 
rectly contrary course ; so that the one may be said to be sub- 
jective, the other objective. 

Observation, it is true, points out the fact that illusions fre- 
quently coexist with hallucinations; that the two become blended; 
and that it is often difficult to distinguish them ; but all these 

* CEuvres philosophique de P. Buffier, avec les notes par M. Francisque 
Boullier, introduction, p. 53, Paris, 1843: Coll. charpentier. 

f Gaz. Med., April 6, 1850: Analyze De Pouvrage de M. Szafkowski. 



HALLUCINATIONS AS CONNECTED WITH ILLUSIONS. 105 

arguments have been produced against the present classification 
of the forms of madness ; yet there is no author who does not 
acknowledge the necessity of describing them separately. In 
view of these considerations, and especially the existence of an 
object in illusions, we have persisted in considering the two 
phenomena as distinct; notwithstanding the contrary opinion is 
held by very competent men, Messrs. Calmeil, Aubanel, and 
several others. Moreover, in the two cases, the psychological 
phenomena appear to us to differ ; and in regard both to their 
prognosis and treatment, we think, with M. Michda, that hallu- 
cinations should be distinguished from illusions. For similar 
reasons, we connect with illusions all those false sensations 
which proceed from the disease of an internal organ, as the 
stomach, the intestines, &c, and all the sensations peculiar to 
hypochondriacs, whose hallucinations depend on some internal 
derangement. 

Illusions occur frequently in a healthy condition ; they are 
easily corrected by reason. It is needless to repeat the examples 
so often cited in which a square tower appears round — in which 
the shore appears to recede. These facts have long been pro- 
perly appreciated : but there are illusions which the progress of 
science has only lately developed ; such as the giant of the 
Brocken, the fairy Morgana, and the Mirage. 

At certain times, the giant was seen on the summit of the 
Brocken (one of the Hartz Mountains), to the great astonishment 
of the inhabitants and travellers. For many years, this prodigy 
had given occasion to the most wonderful tales, when Mr. Haue 
had the curiosity to examine into the cause, which he was for- 
tunate enough to discover. Whilst gazing on the giant, a violent 
gust of wind almost carried away his hat ; he quickly raised his 
hand, and the giant likewise raised his hand ; he bowed, and his 
bow was returned. Mr. Haue summoned the master of the inn 
at the Brocken to witness his discovery. The experiment was 
repeated with similar results. The wonder was then explained. 
It was nothing but the effect of light produced by an object 
highly illuminated and surrounded by light clouds, which object, 
being reflected at a greater or less distance, was extended by 
an optical illusion to the height of five or six hundred feet.* 

* Philosophical Magazine, vol. i. p. 232. 



106 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The interesting little work by Brewster, which we have already 
mentioned, may be consulted on this subject. A similar illusion 
has been noticed in Westmoreland, and other mountainous coun- 
tries, where troops of cavaliers and armies appeared to be march- 
ing and countermarching, though they were, in fact, only the 
reflection of horses grazing on an opposite hill, or of peaceable 
travellers. 

Many circumstances may give rise to illusions. Ignorance 
chiefly induces them. Certain countries, several provinces in 
France, and many estates, abound with traditions which have 
arisen from illusions of sight. 

A vivid impression, the recollection of an event that has caused 
great excitement, may, through an association of ideas, give rise 
to an illusion. 

" I was in Paris," says M. Wigan, "at a soiree given by M. 
Bellart, some days after the execution of the Prince of Moskowa. 
The usher, hearing the name of M. Marechal aine (the elder), an- 
nounced M. le Mare'chal Ney. An electric shudder ran through 
the assembly, and, for my part, I own that the resemblance to 
the prince was for a moment as perfect to my eyes as reality."* 

Fear, remorse, and obscurity are very favorable to illusions. 
To these various causes may be traced apparitions linked with 
some object, such as the folds of a drapery, or a curtain, or those 
occasioned by the situation of a piece of furniture, when combined 
with the effect of a pale or doubtful light. 

When the mind is thus prepared, the most familiar objects are 
transformed into phantoms. Ellis relates an anecdote of this 
kind that happened to the captain of a vessel at Newcastle-on- 
Tyne, and which he heard from an eye-witness. 

Case XLI. During the voyage, the cook of the vessel died. 
Some days after his funeral, the second mate ran to the captain 
in a great fright, to tell him that the cook was walking ahead of 
the vessel, and all the crew were on the deck to look at him. 
The captain, annoyed at being disturbed on account of such a 
circumstance, gave orders to steer the ship towards Newcastle, 
that they might see which would first get into port ; but, tor- 

* Op. tit., p. 56. On this interesting subject, see Les Recits de la Muse 
Populaire, de M. Em. Souvestre (Revue des deux Mondes, p. 711, t. iv. 
1830) ; and les Legendes du Nord, by M. Marmier. 



HALLUCINATIONS AS CONNECTED WITH ILLUSIONS. 107 

mented again, he frankly owned that he had caught the infection. 
In looking towards the spot pointed out, he perceived a human 
form, whose gait was like that of his old friend, and who was 
dressed like him. The panic became general ; every one was 
motionless. Obliged to work the ship himself, he perceived that 
the cause of all their absurd terror was a fragment of the top of 
a mast, from some wreck, that floated on before them. Had he 
not approached the pretended ghost, the tale of the cook walking 
the water would long have circulated amongst the good folks of 
Newcastle, and excited their terror.* 

Many are the facts of this nature. TVe give several that 
explain a multitude of narratives in different authors. 

Ajax was so enraged that the arms of Achilles were awarded 
to Ulysses that he went distracted. Seeing a herd of swine, he 
drew his sword and furiously assailed them, taking them for 
Greeks. He seized two of them, flogged them soundly, and 
loaded them with abuse, for he imagined that one was his judge, 
Agamemnon, and the other his enemy Ulysses. On recovering, 
he was so ashamed of his act that he stabbed himself. f 

King Theodoric, blinded by jealousy, and yielding to the per- 
fidious suggestions of his courtiers, put to death the senator Sym- 
machus, one of the most virtuous men of his time. Scarcely was 
the cruel deed done than the king was overwhelmed with remorse, 
and incessantly reproached himself with his crime. One day a 
new kind of fish was brought on his table ; suddenly he uttered 
a cry of horror, for he saw in the head of the fish that of the 
unfortunate Symmachus. This vision threw him into a profound 
melancholy, from which he never recovered. J 

Bessus, surrounded with guests, and deeply absorbed in the 
pleasures of a banquet, suddenly becomes heedless of his flatter- 
ers. He listens attentively to a discourse that no one hears ; 
then, transported with rage, springs up, seizes his sword, and 
rushing to a nest of swallows, strikes at the poor birds, and kills 
them. " Think," says he, " of the insolence of these birds; who 

* Hibbert, Sketches of the Philosophy of Apparitions, p. 16. 

f Traite de l'Apparition des Esprits, par Taillepied, docteur en theo- 
logie, Rouen, 1609. This work is only a disguised translation of a work 
by Lavater, entitled Ludovico Lavateri Theologia eximii, De Spectris Lemu- 
ribus, etc. Lugdani Bat., ann. 1570, 2d edit., 1659. 

% Procopius, De bello Italico. 



108 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

dare reproach me with the murder of my father !" The courtiers 
withdraw in astonishment, and soon afterwards they learn that 
Bessus is really guilty, and that his action was only the result 
of an appealing conscience.* 

Illusions of sight and hearing have often assumed the form of 
an epidemic. History records a number of facts of this charac- 
ter. One of the chief is the transformation of clouds into armies, 
and all sorts of figures ; to which religious belief, optical pheno- 
mena, physical laws then unknown, high fevers of a pestilential 
character, and the derangement of the brain, all give a very 
natural explanation. 

Pausanias relates, in his Attics, that, four hundred years after 
the battle of Marathon, the neighing of horses and the shock of 
armies were nightly heard on the spot. All the curious did not 
hear the noise, while those who traversed the plain unpremedi- 
tatedly, heard it perfectly. f 

At the battle of Platsea, the air resounded with a fearful cry, 
which the Athenians attributed to the God Pan ; the Persians 
were so alarmed that they fled. It is said that this is the origin 
of the expression panic-fear. 

Pliny says that during the war of the Romans against the 
Cimbrians, they were, on several occasions, alarmed by the clang 
of arms and the sound of trumpets, which appeared to come from 
the sky. Appian speaks of the cries of men in terror, of the 
clash of arms, and the tread of horses. Plutarch, in his life of 
Coriolanus, states that, in the fight against Tarquin, Castor and 
Pollux were seen on white horses, valiantly fighting in front of 
the battle. They carried instantaneously to Rome the news of 
the victory. 

" Shortly before the feast of Easter, on the 27th of May, an 
event happened," says Flavius Josephus, "that I should fear to 
repeat, lest it might be considered fabulous, were it not that per- 
sons are still living who witnessed it; and the misfortunes that 
followed confirmed its truth. Before sunrise, there appeared in 
the air, throughout the whole country, chariots full of armed 
men, traversing the clouds and spreading round the cities, as if 
to inclose them. On the day of Pentecost, the priests, being at 

* Plutarchus, De Sera numinis vindicta. 
f Pausanias, in Attic. — Taillepied, op. cit. 



HALLUCINATIONS AS CONNECTED WITH ILLUSIONS. 109 

night in the inner temple to celebrate divine service, heard a 
noise, and afterwards a voice that repeated several times, ' Let 
us go out from hence.' "* 

M. Calmeil, in his article in the Dictionary on " Hallucina- 
tion," has cited similar facts drawn from Josephus and the his- 
tory of the Lower Empire. Antiochus was preparing to carry- 
war the second time into Egypt ; in the sky appeared men dressed 
in cloth of gold, armed with lances, galloping like squadrons 
about to charge ; even their casques, bucklers, naked swords, and 
lances could be distinguished. 

History abounds in similar tales. Thus, in the time of Charle- 
magne, phalanxes of sorcerers were seen fighting in the air; 
afterward they were fantastic beings, shouting in the temples; 
sublime, solitary voices, heard as in the first ages of the world.f 

In the reign of Charles the Sixth, battles appeared to be going 
on at different times in the clouds ; armed knights encountered 
one another, and the sky was the color of blood.J 

An Italian author relates that the Florentines were for several 
hours duped by an illusion of this nature. Collected in the 
principal streets of the city, they watched attentively the figure 
of an angel floating in the air, and were expecting some miracle 
to be performed, when it was discovered that the illusion was 
caused by a cloud that covered the dome, and on which was re- 
flected the figure of the golden angel that surmounted the edi- 
fice, completely lighted up by the sun's rays.§ 

The period of the Crusades was especially remarkable for a 
multitude of apparitions. 

At the battle of Antioch, in the thickest of the fight, the Cru- 
saders saw St. George, St. Demetrius, and St. Theodosius come 
to their aid.|| We read, in M. Thierry's history, that in the at- 
tack on the Temple of Delphos by the Gauls, these barbarians 
were frightened by the apparition of three shrouded heroes in 
the environs of the city. The Delphi ans recognized, it is said, 

* War of the Jews against the Romans, liv. vi. chap. xxi. 
f Ferdinand Denis, la Monde enchante. 

% Chronique du Religieux de St. Denis, Collection des Memoires relatifs 
a Phistoire de France. 
§ Ferrier, op. cit. 
II Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, t. i. 



110 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

the shades of Hyporochus, of Laodocus, and of Pyrrhus, the son 
of Achilles.* 

When we consider hallucinations in an historical point of view, 
we will return to this subject. 

The popular imagination, dreaming only of battles, had seen 
in the air the appearances of war ; nature had associated itself 
with the interests, the enthusiasm, and the passions of men. 
Everything harmonized with the universal sentiment ; and, in 
order that the past should, as it were, unite in the feeling of the 
times, the tomb had permitted the illustrious dead to mingle with 
the living. In these marvellous visions, we recognize all the 
sublimity of the epopee. 

The Christians of this period persuaded themselves that the 
apparitions of the Old and of the New Testament were repro- 
duced for them ; and this belief was the more allowable and 
plausible, since the circumstances occurred in the country where 
all these prodigies were originally accomplished, f 

U A powerful belief," said Walter Scott, "has frequently per- 
formed on the battle-plain what had been seen in darkness and 
solitude. Those who were on the borders of the spirit-world, or 
were engaged in sending their fellows into those regions of dark- 
ness, believed they saw the apparitions of those whom their reli- 
gion associated with such scenes. It is not surprising that, in 
the midst of a doubtful battle, of violence, of noise and confusion 
inseparable from such a situation, the warriors should think they 
beheld gods and saints." 

It may, perhaps, be asked how a considerable number of men 
could be dupes of the same illusion. Independently of the rea- 
sons we have given, and amongst which ignorance, fear, super- 
stition, and disease play an important part, the contagious influ- 
ence of example must not be forgotten. One cry is enough to 
frighten a large assembly. One individual, who imagines he has 
seen supernatural appearances, would hasten to impart his con- 
viction to those not more enlightened than himself. The anec- 
dote of the man who exclaimed, whilst gazing on a statue, that 
it bowed its head, has often been quoted. All those who were 
present affirmed that they saw it move. Another reason is the 
utility to which the leading men in the state turned these be- 

* Histoire des Gaulois, t. i. p. 174. — Pausanias, t. x. p. 430. 
f Michaud, Histoire des Croisades. 



HALLUCINATIONS AS CONNECTED WITH ILLUSIONS. Ill 

liefs; and it is unquestionable that in many instances they were 
the result of artifice. In traversing the ruins of Hadrian's Villa, 
in the environs of Tivoli, we noticed, in the temple of Canope, 
the remains of long tubes which served to give voice to the ora- 
cle. Eusebius Salverte has demonstrated, in a work the doc- 
trines of which we in nowise share, that the ancients knew how 
to raise spirits, and to produce phantasmagorical effects.* 

Illusions of hearing have created a thousand popular stories. 
One of the best known in Ireland is that of St. Patrick's Hole. 
The murmuring of the wind became the voices of complaining 
souls, who entreated the prayers of the living ; tombs, grottos, 
and caverns were spots that served for the resort of spirits. In 
traversing battle-fields, the sighs of warriors were heard who 
fell in combat. 

"We have somewhat dilated on illusions, in order to show the 
difference between them and hallucinations ; but in admitting this 
line of division, we have thought that, by reason of the frequent 
union of the two, it was necessary to give a general idea of them. 
Thus, when we shall speak of the etiology of hallucinations, we 
shall often be obliged to refer to that of illusions. 

One distinction, pointed out by several authors, must not be 
lost sight of ; that is, we must not confound false inductions with 
illusions. A delirious conception is not, in fact, a sensorial illu- 
sion. "To have a sensorial illusion," says M. Michea, "is not to 
make a false judgment on a clear perception, but to perceive 
viciously a false impression." 

Sometimes illusion appears first, and is secondarily replaced 
by hallucination. It may be united with, or may succeed it ; it 
can also exist alone. 

Case XLII. Dr. Martin, Superintendent of Antiquaille, com- 
municated the following fact to M. Bottex : A man, fifty-two 
years of age, of a plethoric constitution, after having experienced 
a defect in the visual organs, so that objects were represented 
sometimes double, sometimes reversed, soon perceived symptoms 
of a congestion of the brain, which caused fear of apoplexy. 
Three copious bloodlettings in the arm, and an application of 
leeches to the anus relieved the congestion ; but he afterwards 
experienced a singular hallucination, accompanied by squinting. 

* Eusebe Salverte, Des sciences occultes, 2d edit. Paris, 1843, 1 vol. in 8vo. 



112 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

>His eyelids contracted, and the globe of his eyes turned from 
right to left at irregular intervals ; at which times he imagined 
he saw objects or persons which he appeared to follow with his 
eyes into the dining-room or kitchen; places entirely separated 
from the chamber where he lay. This patient, who comprehend- 
ed that it was a false perception, died under another attack of 
apoplexy. 

This case points out the transition from illusion to hallucina- 
tion. 

Illusion, as well as hallucination, may be recognized as false ; 
but, as the malady progresses, it is considered real. 

Case XLIII. Towards the close of 1835, Madame N., laun- 
dress, distressed by violent rheumatic pains, quitted her business 
and took to sewing. Little accustomed to such work, she fre- 
quently passed part of the night in providing for her wants; 
nevertheless, she fell into extreme poverty, and was seized with 
a severe ophthalmia, which soon became chronic. As she con- 
tinued to sew, she saw four hands, four needles, and four seams; 
she had a double-double vision, in consequence of a slight diverg- 
ence in the visual axis. At first, Madame N. accounted for this 
phenomenon ; but, at the close of some days, becoming still 
poorer, and a powerful impression being made on her mind, she 
believed that she really sewed four seams at once, and that God, 
in compassion to her misfortunes, had worked a miracle in her 
behalf.* 

Case XLIV. Cardan, of whom we shall elsewhere relate seve- 
ral hallucinations, relates that, during his stay in Paris, looking 
casually at his hands, he was much alarmed at seeing a red spot 
on the ring of the right forefinger. That evening, he received 
a letter from his son-in-law, imforming him of the imprisonment 
of his son, and the ardent wish that he had to see him at Milan, 
where he was detained. The mark continued to spread during 
fifty-three days, until it reached the extremity of the finger ; it 
was as red as blood. After the execution of his son, the spot 
began to diminish ; the day after his death, it had almost entirely 
disappeared, and two days after no traces remained. f 

* Hoffbauer, Medecine legale relatif aux alienes et aux sourds muets, 
translated from the German by Chambeyron, with notes by MM. Esquirol 
and Itard, 1 vol. in 8vo. Paris, 1807. 

f Car dam us, De Yita propria. 



HALLUCINATIONS AS CONNECTED WITH ILLUSIONS. 113 

Every sense may be the seat of illusion, and all may be simul- 
taneously affected. 

An irregular sensation may become the source, by its potency, 
of a melancholy affection. 

An Italian lady had a constant tingling in her left ear, which 
increased daily, and which she compared to the ringing of a bell. 
Becoming quite melancholy in consequence, she went to a dentist 
in Florence, who happily thought of striking, one by one, all 
her teeth with a small hammer. As the hammer, in striking the 
eye-tooth of the upper jaw, occasioned at every stroke a tinkling 
sensation, he regarded that tooth as the seat of the evil, and 
therefore extracted it ; when the lady was at once relieved from 
the annoyance that had troubled her. On sawing the tooth 
longitudinally, a little osseous concretion was found in the cavity 
suspended to the nutritive artery, and resembling the clapper of 
a bell.* 

Illusions are infinitely* varied. A commandant of artillery, 
who thought himself pursued by his enemies, imagined that the 
letters of books were of a particular nature, that they galloped 
one over the other, and were printed expressly for him. Nothing 
could drive from his mind the idea that the books in my library 
were composed for his purpose. This illusion may, in some sort, 
be likened to that described by Dendy,| which occurs in some 
cases where morphine had been employed, and which has rela- 
tion to language ; for, in reading and listening, it seemed as if 
words and sentences had lost their true meaning. 

The transformation of figures and objects is a very usual form 

of illusion. Miss D imagined every one in the house to be 

Irish ; all played a part in this general travestie. This one was 
her enemy ; that, the enemy of one of her relatives ; each one 
had his character and position, and acted accordingly. This 

illusion lasted a long time. Mrs. M thought she saw her 

brother, who had been dead very many years, in the persons of 
several who were sick. Sauvages speaks of an error of hearing, 
under the name vertiginous tingling {tintoin vertigineux), which 
consists in hearing on the right, words addressed on the left, and 
vice versa. 

* Obs. Med. Napol., December 1, 1833. 
f Philosophy of Mystery, p. 88. 



114 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Illusions of hearing are very common with the insane. A 
kind word addressed to another person, a simple movement of 
the lips, is converted into taunts, offensive words, and injuries. 

Ravaillac, in chanting the Dixit Dominus of David, the 
Miserere and de Profundis, thought that the sound issuing from 
his larynx had the nature and effect of a war-trumpet.* 

Illusions, like hallucinations, have often occasioned quarrels, 
duels, suicides, and murders. 

Case XLV. M. C, after a mental aberration, from which he 
has not quite recovered, returns to his family. The day after 
his arrival, he goes down to the cellar, followed by his wife. As 
he does not return, his sister-in-law goes down likewise. The 
continued absence of these three persons alarms the servant; she 
wishes to ascertain the cause, but presently returns, shrieking 
fearfully, and rushes from the house. Her broken words and 
looks of terror intimate some dreadful event. The watchmen 
fly to the spot ; they descend. Two w*omen lie on the ground, 
bathed in blood. C. is, at a little distance, seated on a cask, 
with a bloody razor at his feet. To all their questions he replies, 
that he is defending himself against the devil. This man, proved 
insane, was placed at Charenton ; and in 1825 was transferred 
to the private establishment of Mme. Marcel Sainte Colombe, 
where I attended him for nearly a year. On being restored to 
reason, he demanded his liberty, and, against the advice of MM. 
Esquirol and Marc, obtained it. Some years after, he rushed on 
the woman who lived with him, taking her for a demon, who 
was reproaching him with his crimes ; she only escaped by throw- 
ing herself out of the window. Twelve days after, he died, in 
the madhouse of Dr. Pressat, my predecessor, in transports of 
rage, believing himself to be surrounded with phantoms and 
devils.f 

Case XLYI. Madame B., who has been in our establishment, 
is well educated ; she converses agreeably, and expresses herself 
in good language. On two different occasions, her illusions have 
led her to the commission of very dangerous acts. The first 

* Proems, examen, &c, du mechant et execrable parricide Francois 
Ravaillac, sur la mort de Henri le Grand. An anonymous pamphlet, Paris, 
1611, p. 35. 

f A. Brierre de Boismont, observations medico- legales sur la monomanie 
homicide, Paris, 1826. 



HALLUCINATIONS AS CONNECTED WITH ILLUSIONS. 115 

time she seized her sister by the throat, and tried to strangle her, 
and throw her out of the window, taking her for a corpse. The 
second time, about midnight, she knocked gently at the chamber- 
door of her husband, telling him that she was taken ill. Scarcely 
had he opened the door than she dealt him five blows on the head 
with an iron bar. Staggering and covered with blood, he made 
a tremendous effort, pushed her out, closed the door, and fainted; 
she believed him to be a devil. This lady has since acknowledged 
her mistake ; but she also persists in saying that she took him 
for a devil. 

There are some crazy people who pick up sand and little peb- 
bles, convinced that they are precious stones; they fill their pock- 
ets with them. M. V. passes the whole day in examining these 
pretended jewels through a magnifying glass, in order to select 
the finest. He goes to his room, bending under the weight of 
his riches. By illusions of the touch, persons think they are 
struck. Madame D. is subject to an eruption, which she thinks 
are marks put on her during the night by evil people. It 
is certain that rheumatic, neuralgic, and visceral pains become, 
to many deranged persons, the source of illusions of the touch. 

Those of smell are very common. Madame L. scents the most 
disgusting objects, pretending that they exhale a delicious per- 
fume. 

M. D. asserts that her physicians cause the most infectious 
odors to arise from her food and drinks, by which means they 
desire to kill her. 

The major part of these illusions are linked with the preoccu- 
pations, ideas, habits, and passions of the patients. One young 
lady tells me that she cannot remain any longer, because every 
one around her is disguised; that it is a perpetual carnival. This 
illusion, like many others, remained long inexplicable, until I at 
length discovered that the event which caused her madness took 
place at a masked ball. 

Illusions of taste are constantly occurring. We will cite the 
case of the patient who, maintaining for years an obstinate silence, 
passed his days in licking the walls of his room, for which no 
one could account, when he one day said : " You do not know 
what I taste? These are delicious oranges." Nothing is more 
common, especially among melancholy monomaniacs, than to hear 
them complain of the poisonous flavor of their food. This idea 



116 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

frequently leads them to commit suicide through abstinence. 
We have frequently noticed horrible perversions of taste. A 
patient who remained eighteen months in our establishment 
every day devoured any filth she could find. Her breath became 
very offensive. When remonstrated with on this depraved taste, 
she flew into a passion, and said that it was excellent food. The 
contrast which the manners and language of this young woman 
presented to her conduct and appearance was painful to wit- 
ness. Every day another young lady, perfectly well-educated, 
and full of wit and talent, came to see her, avowing that she was 
her sister, who had really been dead for ten years. 

A number of the facts that we have reported, and of which 
we have only given a brief account, were cases of combined hal- 
lucinations of hearing, sight, etc. The following is only a more 
complete reproduction of them : — 

Case XL VII. Madame R., aged forty-nine, small in person, 
brown, lean, lymphatic, sanguine, leading a very regular life, 
and extremely parsimonious, lost, through a relative, a consider- 
able sum of money. Up to that time, she had never shown any 
symptoms of insanity, although her mother had been deranged. 
Almost immediately after this reverse of fortune, she became rest- 
less and eccentric. Three or four days before she was brought to 
me, she began to talk incoherently; incessantly repeated that 
every one was robbing her, and taking her property. She showed 
an extreme fear of being arrested by a gendarme. This idea so 
possessed her that she said, rather than be subjected to it, she 
would commit suicide. 

Besides this, Madame R. believed that she was surrounded by 
menacing figures, who uttered impertinences and insulting lan- 
guage. She sought for them behind the curtains, under the bed, 
and in the wardrobes. These figures were equally distinct day 
and night, and during a conversation she maintained that they 
were actually present. 

Besides these imaginary creations, she insisted that the coun- 
tenances of strangers were those of persons intimately known to 
her. During eight days she abused my wife, taking her for one 
of the intimate friends who had brought her to my establishment. 
It was in vain that my wife endeavored to undeceive her; her 
consolations were converted into insults, nonsense, or grossness. 
"How wicked you are!" she would say; "you only speak to 



HALLUCINATIONS AS CONNECTED WITH ILLUSIONS. 117 

maltreat me." At this time, her breath was fetid and gastric, and 
she refused all nourishment, asserting either that her food was 
poisoned, or that it had so detestable a flavor that she could not 
touch it. 

This lady complained that she was beaten in the night, and 
that the attendants bruised her by their tortures. I was witness 
to the fact that it was only necessary to touch her to make her 
say she was hurt. 

On two different occasions she attempted suicide. The last 
had, for the moment, a favorable result. She was much bruised 
by her fall, and during several days spoke rationally on her 
hallucinations and illusions. 

We have seen, in Bodin's case (Case XXVII.), that hallucina- 
tions take place sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left 
side. This phenomenon, to which M. Michea has given the title 
of double hallucinations,* may equally be manifested in illusions. 

Bartholin speaks of an hysterical female who saw everything 
in nature shortened to half its size, and who saw only with the 
left eye.f 

Illusions may be of long continuance. Guislain relates the 
case of a poor woman who lost her reason on account of her son 
joining the army. An idiot being one day brought into the asy- 
lum where she was, she took him for this much regretted son, 
and for years lavished upon him the most tender caresses. 

Recapitulation. — Illusions, like hallucinations, may exist in 
a healthy state. They have formed one of the most powerful 
arguments against the veracity of the senses. This philosophical 
error has arisen from more being required of the senses than it 
is their mission to bestow. Illusions cannot be confounded with 
hallucinations, inasmuch as the former have a material object 
for their foundation, whilst the second are purely cerebral 
images. 

Neither their frequent complexity, nor their transformation 
into each other, nor their common origin, nor the difficulty of 
distinguishing them, can destroy this division. Illusions, as well 
as hallucinations, have their seat in the brain. Illusions in sane 
persons are corrected by observation, experience, and judgment, 
and have besides no influence on their general conduct. Igno- 

* Hallucinations dedoublees. f De luce animal, p. 41. 



118 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ranee is their most common cause; and they greatly diminish as 
instruction progresses. Fear, darkness, and a particular dispo- 
sition of mind are favorable to their existence. The association 
of ideas plays an important part in the production of illusions. 
To the united effects of these circumstances must be attributed 
the appearance of figures walking out from tapestry, statues 
that move, sighs that come from the tombs, etc. etc. Illusions 
have often occurred in an epidemic form, which must be attri- 
buted to certain beliefs, to ignorance of physics, to severe fevers, 
and to the power of example and imitation. With the insane, 
illusions may first appear, may be replaced by hallucinations, 
may unite with them, may succeed them, or they may exist 
singly. Like hallucinations, illusions may show themselves one 
by one, two by two, or affect all the senses together; like them, 
they may be the cause of singular, dangerous, and reprehensible 
acts. Habits, inclinations, passions, and powerful emotions ex- 
plain the greater number of illusions. 



CHAPTER V. 

HALLUCINATIONS ARRANGED IN THE ORDER OF THEIR FREQUENCY. 

The varieties of monomania with which they most generally unite — Observations 
on lypemania — Hallucinations are a reflex of the habits of the insane — Obser- 
vations on demonology of the incubus — Nature of sexual hallucinations — 
Observations on nostalgia — Observations on calentura — Recapitulation. 

Although hallucination may exist by itself, independently of 
all complication, it is no less certain that it is most frequently 
united with the different kinds of insanity at present recognized. 
According to Esquirol, eighty out of one hundred insane per- 
sons have hallucinations. From more recent inquiries, this ap- 
pears to be too great a proportion. It is especially noticed in 
monomania, either from its own peculiar nature, or from investi- 
gation in this form of mental derangement being easier to make. 
It is not always thus, since there are cases of melancholy patients 
who maintain an obstinate silence for years, and whose secret, 
chance alone betrays. It may, however, be taken as a general 
position, that the more strange and unaccountable the actions of 
madmen, the greater is the probability that they are the result 
of hallucinations or illusions. 

Case XLVIII. "I saw," says Marc, "in the madhouse of 
Dr. Pressat, an aged man, who had become melancholy from re- 
verse of fortune. He had not spoken for several years, and his 
only occupation consisted in smelling and licking the walls of his 
room, as well as the threshold of the door. No one could ex- 
plain the motives for an action as extravagant as painful, and 
the frequency and duration of which had left deep and nume- 
rous impressions on the plaster walls of the place he inhabited. 
I had frequently interrogated him, but unsuccessfully, as to the 
reasons for such strange conduct, conduct that could only excite 
compassion and disgust, when one day, pretending not to notice 
him, I inquired of a keeper what caused all the spots and nume- 



120 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

rous dirty hollows that I noticed on the walls. To our great 
astonishment, the patient broke the silence he had so long main- 
tained, and said : ' You call those dirty spots and hollows, don't 
you? See, they are Japan oranges! What delicious fruit! what 
a color! what fragrance! what exquisite flavor!' And he re- 
commenced inhaling and licking with redoubled ardor. Thus, 
all was explained, and the poor hallucinist, whom I had pitied as 
one of the most unfortunate of men, was, on the contrary, very 
happy, since the most delightful hallucinations of sight, taste, 
and smell gave him continued enjoyment."* 

The frequency of hallucinations in madness induced many 
physicians to notice their number more precisely than had pre- 
viously been done. "In. 145 patients under treatment in the 
BiceUre division," says M. Baudry, u 56 presented hallucinations. f 
Messrs. Aubanel and Thore, in their Statistique de Bicetre, said 
that, out of 87 cases of monomania which they attended in one 
year, 45 exhibited this epiphenomenon. In 66 cases without 
sadness, 35 had hallucinations, and in 21 cases of lypemania, it 
was noticed 11 times.J In 14 cases, the hallucinations were 
single, and constituted all of the malady. At other times, they 
were mingled with a partial disturbance of the faculties, and 
were combined with them. These hallucinations were as follows : 

Of hearing there were 

Of sight there were 

Of taste there were 

Of touch there was 

Of the internal organs there was 

As in mania, those of hearing were the most frequent, and 
next those of sight. Hallucinations of smell were not noticed. 
Many of the hallucinations existed simultaneously in the same 
individual; those of sight and hearing were most frequently 
associated. None of the patients exhibited hallucinations of 
all the senses. 

Of these 66 monomaniacs, 21 were affected with lypemania. 
Of this number, 11 showed symptoms of hallucinations, and 
were distributed as follows : — 

* Marc, De la folie dans ses rapports avec les questions medico-judici- 
aires, 2 vols, in 8vo., Paris, t. i. p. 191, 1840. 
f These, 1833, p. 14. J These, p. 101. 



19 


cases. 


11 


u 


3 


u 


1 


case. 


1 


a 



HALLUCINATIONS IN THE ORDER OF THEIR FREQUENCY. 121 

Of sight there were 3 cases. 

Of hearing there were 6 " 

Of taste there were 2 " 

In a similar examination, in our establishment, we found that, 
out of 62 patients assembled there at the time, 

18 were monomaniacs ; 

7 " maniacs; 
21 " demented ; 

7 " paralytic ; 

9 " imbecile. 

Of this number, 38 had hallucinations, and 24 showed no 
symptoms of them. With our 18 monomaniacs, hallucinations 

Of hearing and sight occurred 8 times. 
Of hearing and taste " 1 time. 

Of hearing 2 times. 

Of sight 1 time. 

In addition to which several had illusions. The form of 
lypemania prevailed in monomania ; in males, this was most 
characterized by fear of enemies. All those affected by it had 
hallucinations of hearing and sight, combined or separate. 

It appears, by this statement, that more than half the insane 
in the establishment had hallucinations ; but this proportion is 
much increased if we deduct from the list the imbeciles and cer- 
tain paralytics. We must not lose sight of the fact that, what- 
ever attention we may pay to this phenomenon, there are some 
in w r hom it is impossible to discover it. Esquirol mentions a 
case of a hypochondriac, who passed his days in perfect immo- 
bility, and seemed lost to everything around him. He was main- 
tained in this state by the terror occasioned by a voice, which 
threatened him with death if he made the slightest movement. 

Hallucinations seem to occur most frequently with lypemania, 
nostalgia, calentura, which is but a modification of it, delirium 
tremens, demonomania, and erotomania. The distressed sensa- 
tions occurring in delirium tremens will be the subject of another 
chapter. Every close observer must have been struck with the 
number of lypemaniacs in establishments devoted to mental ma- 



122 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ladies. A little reflection will readily explain this fact. Is not 
grief, that sad attendant on humanity, the source of the greater 
number of alienations? In the world, the countenance is com- 
posed, to meet the eye of indifference, envy, or curiosity; but, 
in the retirement of home, the mask falls off, and the real suffer- 
ing is unveiled, with all its attendant symptoms. 

Alexander Morison has remarked that, in panophobia, indi- 
viduals are more exposed to hallucinations than in other forms of 
monomania, because they see objects, and hear unceasingly 
noises, which frighten them; and that they attribute to them- 
selves all kinds of crimes.* 

Case XLIX. Madame L., whose misfortunes and heroic de- 
votion have made her name forever celebrated, became insane in 
consequence of very severe moral emotions. The commencement 
of her malady was characterized by extreme agitation, occasioned 
by fear of persecution that possessed her, and by the painful hallu- 
cinations of hearing, sight, and touch. This lady not only heard 
voices that held conversations painful to her, but also saw the 
most hideous and threatening figures come out of the wall. 
Whenever she placed her feet on the ground, she thought that 
she received electric shocks, which made her throw off both shoes 
and stockings, and constantly change her place. f 

Case L. On the 30th December, 1839, M. D. was received 
into my establishment. He came from Bicetre, where he had been 
conveyed two months previously for an act of madness. Son to 
a rich merchant, and having tasted all the delights of luxury, he 
saw, by a continuous train of catastrophes, the whole of his for- 
tune perish. Obliged to give lessons, and frequently reduced to 
endure the greatest privations, his mind became deeply sad- 
dened ; irresolution, dejection, and despair were the unhappy con- 
sequences. From this stage to madness was but a step, which was 
soon taken. 

When he came to me, I found him agitated, fearful, and trem- 
bling at the slightest question. He complained of general chilli- 
ness, a common symptom with lypemaniacs; but what tormented 
him more than anything else was, to hear the voices of his ene- 
mies, who spoke to him through the walls, and to be harassed by 
I 

* Alex. Morison, Cases of Mental Disease, with Practical Observations on 
their Medical Treatment, 
f Marc, op. cit. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN THE ORDER OF THEIR FREQUENCY. 123 

individuals who had put objects of value into his pillow and his 
mattress, in order to dishonor him, and make him pass for a thief. 
This idea never left him a moment's peace. He passed his days 
in sighing, and complaining that he was about to suffer the most 
cruel torments. It was in vain to say to him: "For ten days 
you have repeated the same thing, and yet nothing has happened 
to you." It was in vain to surround him with cares and kind- 
nesses; he was insensible to everything. I know of no sight 
more painful than that of melancholy which has reached this 
stage, and, having several times witnessed it, I can comprehend 
the contagiousness of example and suicide. 

In order to lessen his anguish, I had his pillow unsewn, which 
he imagined was filled by his malicious enemies with diamonds, 
although he could never tell us why they desired his ruin. After 
looking most attentively at its contents, he was tranquil for the 
rest of the day; but on the next day his notions returned, and, 
although we proposed to repeat the experiment, he told me, with 
a despairing tone, that the unseen persons took care to remove 
the diamonds. This poor creature was worse at night than dur- 
ing the day. He would then see a man who took his clothes, to 
fill them with precious stones. At other times, his persecutors, 
assembling in greater numbers, would put him in the bath, mal- 
treat and beat him. In the morning, he declared his body broken 
down by the evil done to him. At other times, he was trans- 
ported to different parts of France, to Africa, or to America. 
His descriptions of these places were confused; often he was 
satisfied with merely naming them. 

His plate, the wall, his curtains appeared filled with people 
and ships, come to carry him off. When his food was brought, 
he would never take his own plate, but that of another, as he 
had conceived the idea that we wished to poison him. The 
drinks we provided were a terrible punishment, in consequence 
of the poisonous effluvia he found in them ; and he never emptied 
his glass, supposing that some of the poison would remain at the 
bottom. One of his great fears was to be left in a room where 
there was any silver plate, so much did he dread being accused 
of stealing it. 

This very man, whose false perceptions nothing could conquer, 
joined in conversation with remarkable appositeness whenever 
his attention could be unexpectedly fixed. 



124 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The despair which his constant dread of being accused of robbery 
occasioned, made us fear that he would commit suicide, so that 
he was constantly watched. It often happens with those patients, 
who believe that we wish to poison them, that they diminish the 
quantity of their food daily. This progressive abstinence has 
the effect of determining dyspeptic symptoms, which increase so 
much as to make it very difficult to oblige them to take the 
quantity of food absolutely necessary. Many complain of vio- 
lent pains in the pharynx, in the oesophagus, and in the stomach; 
and deglutition becomes very painful. 

M. D., who had for some time eaten but little, began to insist 
on it that copper and sponge were put into his throat and sto- 
mach. He did not conceal his impression that myself, my wife, 
and my children were plotting to poison him. He begged our 
pardon for the idea; understood that it must appear very strange; 
and that any one else who should hold such language might be 
looked on as a madman, but said, nevertheless, that what he as- 
serted was the truth. 

The life of man is a long train of contradictions and false- 
hoods ; with one turn of the dice, he moves from black to white, 
and does and says just the contrary to what he did and said just 
before. The acts of the insane are only an exaggeration of this 
singular contrariety. Here is an unhappy being, who, full of 
fear at being poisoned, condemns himself to all the horrors of 
famine, substitutes a real punishment to escape imaginary tor- 
ments, and who dreads death, but brings it on himself. It is in 
vain that he sees those with whom he dines eat of the same dishes 
and drink of the same wine ; nothing tranquillizes him ; he per- 
sists in believing that the head of the establishment, who has the 
greatest interest in preserving his patients, is making every effort 
to kill them by poison, without being able to give any motive for 
the act. Is it true, as moralists assert, that anticipated ills are 
more terrible than those that are present ? 

Four months after his entrance, his extreme emaciation proved 
the effect of this regimen on his organization ; the pulse was 
weak and slow ; the skin was sensibly cold, especially the ex- 
tremities, and the complexion was cadaverous. For some days 
he had a short, dry cough, and his breath was inexpressibly of- 
fensive. As the disorder progressed, his voice became hoarse, 



HALLUCINATIONS IN THE ORDER OF THEIR FREQUENCY. 125 

and finally inaudible ; it was necessary to lean close to him to 
catch any of his words. 

Notwithstanding this wasting, and the certain signs of approach- 
ing death, the poor man no less persisted in his chimerical ideas ; 
he was still convinced that they were putting sponges, keys, and 
other strange substances into his stomach. In order to prevent 
his food touching the plates, he endeavored to hold it suspended 
in the air. His distress, when it fell, was fearful. Even just 
before his death-agony, he repeated that he had been poisoned, 
and that his pillows were full of diamonds which he was accused 
of stealing. He expired with the assertion that the morsel he 
ate was poisoned. 

The hallucinations of lypemaniacs bear relation to the cause 
and nature of their malady, to the character of their general 
ideas, and to the germ of their passions ; and they will, therefore, 
be a more or less faithful reproduction of all these qualities. 
Those who have studied chemistry and physics, or who have heard 
these sciences made the subject of conversation, believe themselves 
to be pursued by philosophers, by electricity, and magnetism. 
Those who have been rich, who have been industrious, and have 
lost their money, imagine that they are being robbed, or that the 
gendarmes are coming for them. In a word, in the greater 
number of cases, hallucination is only an echo that supplies to us 
useful information. Some hypochondriacs, victims of hallucina- 
tions, are in a state of anxiety which it is impossible to describe ; 
they conceive that whilst, apparently, every precaution is taken 
to prevent their killing themselves, the means are surreptitiously 
pointed out. These hypochondriacs look mournful and repel- 
lant ; despair is painted on all their features ; their countenances 
are fixed, earthy, and yellowish ; their eyes, deep sunk and down- 
cast, are of the same tint, or very much bloodshot. They have 
more or less of cephalalgia across the forehead, and particularly 
at the root of the nose. These patients feel much throbbing 
in the interior of the head ; they are tormented with sleepless- 
ness, or, if they sleep, they are troubled by dreams and fantastic 
apparitions. 

Ascetic delirium has fatal results. When the miserable beings 
who are attacked by it are haunted by hallucinations, they yield 
entirely to the impulses of the devil, who is the spring of all their 



126 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

actions.* The fear of the devil, and the dread of future punish- 
ments, had formerly an extraordinary influence on the human 
mind. Demonology, which has greatly diminished since the 18th 
century, reappears with the reaction of religious feeling, as if 
evil must he the inevitable shadow of good. In the space of six 
years, we have noticed fifteen cases in our establishment. 

Dr. Macario has an idea that this form of madness is frequent 
in the provincial insane asylums, which he attributes to the fact 
that materialism has not become so strongly rooted in the French 
soil as might be supposed. f He thinks that these insane persons 
have a crowd of hallucinations and illusions. The devil presents 
himself to them under the form of an animal — sometimes as a 
man-dog, a hunchback, or a lightning flash. He enters into 
them; speaks by their mouths; engrosses all their faculties ; bites 
and burns them ; tears out their hearts, their brains, their intes- 
tines, and torments them in a thousand ways ; spreads an infec- 
tious odor of sulphur, of a goat, &c. ; at other times, and this is 
particularly remarked in females, the evil spirit makes unhallowed 
proposals. 

Some demonomaniacs are taken up into the air or transported 
to hell, where, full of terror, they watch the torments of the 
damned. Others believe themselves transformed into animals, 
trees, fruits, or reduced to cinders, and then, like the phoenix, 
believe themselves resuscitated and regenerated ; some are sur- 
rounded with hideous reptiles and corpses ; some again say they 
have sold their souls to the devil, and signed the compact with 
blood ; they believe themselves eternally damned. There are 
those who say that they will never die ; but, at the end of the 
world, be alone on the earth. Some are happier; they are pro- 
tected by the devil, who teaches them the secret of making gold, 
predicts to them the future, unveils the mysteries of hell, and 
gives them the power of performing miracles; at their voice, 
the lightnings flash, the thunder roars, rain falls, the earth opens, 
and the dead come to life. 

Case LI. Madame C, a foreigner, forty-eight years of age, 

* Falcot, Du Suicide et de FHypochondrie, 1 vol. in 8vo., 1822, p. 153, 
et seq. 

f Etudes cliniques sur la Demonologie, Annates Me'dico-Psychologiques, 
May, 1843, p. 440, et seq. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN THE ORDER OF THEIR FREQUENCY. 127 

was always lively and impressible. Educated amidst the most 
superstitious practices, and very ignorant, according to the usage 
of her country, she was subject, during six years, to an inter- 
mittent melancholy, which, after several attacks, presented a 
novel form. This lady, who for some time had given up all re- 
ligious exercises, became filled with scruples, and thought herself 
damned. Haunted by this idea, for several days she refused all 
nourishment, and when brought to my establishment, had several 
crises of fury. In our first interview, she pronounced the follow- 
ing words with great volubility: "I am in hell, damned — while 
you are in Paradise." Then, becoming tranquil, she commenced 
weeping, complained of seeing devils, and of being surrounded 
with flames. " I am damned ; my children are damned ; save 
me!" Saying these words, she howled like a wild beast, beat 
her head against the walls, broke window-panes, and tore her 
clothes ; asking incessantly for drink, as if devoured by an in- 
ternal fire. 

For three days she was calm, then the same ideas returned ; 
with dishevelled hair, haggard eyes, and prolonged howlings, 
she bore a striking resemblance to one possessed. An abundant 
mucus escaped from her mouth, which she sometimes spat at the 
assistants ; the terror and despair imprinted on her countenance 
indicated but too clearly the effect of these frightful visions. 
When her strait waistcoat was removed, she bruised her bosom 
with blows ; and several times attempted to dash out her brains 
against the wall. 

In the last month of her disease, her cries became so incessant 
that we were obliged to place her in a lonely apartment. There 
— squatted down, her body blue with the blows she continued to 
give herself; her eyes fixed, sunk, and bloodshot; her skin cada- 
verous, yellowish, and wrinkled ; with a menacing air, a voice 
hoarse with crying that she was lost, damned, and that the devil 
possessed her, and tortured her, and prevented her from closing 
her eyes by his constant apparition — she presented a spectacle 
of the most frightful despair. At intervals, she would supplicate 
the keepers to save, and snatch her from her fate. 

This horrible phantasmagoria would naturally affect all the 
functions. She soon refused all nourishment, and for three or 
four days together would not take any. During the last period 



128 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

of her life, she remained for fifteen days without eating, and only 
drank occasionally a cup of coffee. This also she frequently 
rejected, saying that it burnt her, and had an abominable taste, 
which proceeded from the fetidness of her breath, which was 
really insupportable. 

At length her eyes and nostrils became filled with a purulent 
mucus that indicated the fatal termination. In the last days of 
her existence, she proved how much the maladies of the nervous 
system may change the organization. Reduced to the last de- 
gree of marasma, she had so interlocked her limbs, and knotted 
herself together,*that no efforts could replace her in a natural 
position. In this state of rigidity she expired, a prey to the 
same hallucinations, refusing drink, and often repeating that she 
did not wish to die. 

We have treated of deranged persons who imagined that the 
devil had entered into them, and that they were surrounded with 
flames ; of others at whom he made grimaces, and to whom he 
addressed menacing language. A young lady followed us inces- 
santly, to tell us that all mankind was damned, and that we were 
all devils, for in these cases illusions often coincide with halluci- 
nations. 

With women, the apparitions of the foul fiend are associated 
with sexual approximation, which explains hysterical symptoms, 
erotomania, and nymphomania, so common to this sex. Facts 
of this kind are so numerous that we are perplexed in our at- 
tempt to make a selection. 

Case LII. There was, at Nantes, an unhappy woman who 
was tormented with a certain devil full of effrontery ; this demon 
had appeared to her under a very handsome figure. Concealing 
his vile intentions, and making use of winning language, he had 
inspired her soul with favorable feelings towards him, and suc- 
ceeded in subduing her will in entire obedience to his desires. 

Her husband was a brave chevalier, who was entirely ignorant 
of this execrable intercourse, which continued for six years, at 
the end of which time, she became terrified, by the infamy of so 
much vileness, and by the fear of God, dreading at every moment 
lest his fearful judgments should fall upon her. Having made 
her way to the feet of a priest, and confessed her sin, she inces- 
santly visited holy places, and asked assistance of the saints ; but 



HALLUCINATIONS IN THE ORDER OF THEIR FREQUENCY. 129 

no confession, no prayer, no almsgiving could bring her relief. 
Daily, the demon pursued her with his furious passion. At length 
the crime became notorious. It reached the ears of the husband, 
who looked on his wife with horror. In the mean while, St. Ber- 
nard and his suite arrived. The unhappy woman rushed to his 
feet, and amidst torrents of tears confessed her horrible sufferings, 
the reiterated insults of the demon to whom she was a prey, and 
the uselessness of all she had done by the priest's order; she 
added that her oppressor had warned her of the approach of the 
holy man, and had forbidden her, with the most dreadful menaces, 
to present herself before him; saying that it would serve no pur- 
pose, since the abbe, once gone, he, who had been her greatest 
friend, would become her most cruel persecutor. At this, the 
servant of God consoled her by words full of kindness, and pro- 
mised her the assistance of Heaven ; and, as night was then ap- 
proaching, he desired her to return to him on the following day, 
and to put her trust in the Lord. 

In the morning she returned, and communicated to the man 
of God the blasphemies and menaces which her incubus had 
addressed to her. "Have no fear," said St. Bernard, "of his 
menaces ; but take my staff, and lay it in your bed ; then let the 
demon touch you if he can." The woman did as she was de- 
sired, lay down in her bed fortified by making the sign of the 
cross, and placed the staff beside her. The incubus soon arrived, 
dared not approach the bed, but furiously threatened the poor 
creature that her punishment should commence so soon as the 
saint departed. The Sabbath approached; the man of God de- 
sired that all the community should be called to the church by 
the bishop's proclamation. Accordingly, on that day, a vast 
multitude assembled in the church. St. Bernard, followed by 
two bishops, Geoffrey of Chartres, and Bricton of Nantes, 
mounted the gallery, and desired that all the attendants should 
hold lighted tapers in their hands. Himself, the bishops, and 
other clergy having so done, he publicly exposed the unheard-of 
and audacious acts of the demon; then, aided by the prayers of 
all the faithful present, he publicly anathematized the unclean 
spirit, and forbade him, by the authority of Christ, ever to ap- 
proach either that or any other woman. All the sacred tapers 
being then extinguished, the power of the demon departed with 
9 



130 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

their light. The unhappy woman communed after having con- 
fessed, and her enemy never dared reappear.* 

Case LIII. Jeanne Harvilliers, a native of Verberie, near 
Compeigne, accused of homicide and witchcraft, was brought be- 
fore the magistrate. She confessed that, at her birth, her mother 
had oifered her to Satan, and that, since the age of twelve, the 
devil, in the form of a great black man, clothed in black cloth, 
booted and spurred, having an invisible horse at the door, had 
visited her constantly. The peasantry loudly clamored for her 
death ; but the judges caused inquiry to be made at Verberie, 
her birthplace, and at other villages where she had lived. It 
appeared that, thirty years before, she had been whipped for 
sorcery, and that her mother was burned for a witch. 

She admitted these facts, and owned to having invoked Satan 
to remove a spell which she had laid on an enemy, which he re- 
fused to do. She finished by asking mercy and forgiveness. 
The judges were much embarrassed to know what punishment to 
award. Some were for burning; some for hanging. The for- 
mer prevailed. She was burnt alive on the last day of April, 
1578, on the prosecution of Claude d'Offai, king's counsel at 
Ribemont. After her condemnation, she owned to having used 
ointments that the devil had given her ; said that she had at- 
tended the witch's sabbath ; and had been united to Beelzebub. 
She said the devil gave no money, and concluded by accusing a 
shepherd and a slater of Senlis of sorcery. f 

According to authors who have written on this subject, the 
object of Satan was to cause the commission of the greatest 
crimes, for which he made himself either man or woman. J 

Coelius Aurelianus states, after Salimaque, the partisan of the 
doctrines of Hippocrates, that incubes appeared in Rome as a 
contagious disease, of which many died.§ 

* Vie de Saint Bernard, Collections des Memoires relatifs a Fhistoire 
de France, translated by M. Guizot. At that period, religion alone could 
remedy evils against which science was powerless. 

f J. Garrinet, Histoire de la Magie en France, 1816, p. 133. 

t Ibid. 

\ Ccelius Aurelianus, chronic morb. liv. 1, chap. iii. de Incubone, Lyon, 
1567. Horst. D'amonomanie, oder Geschichte des Glaubens an Zauberei 
und d'amonisehe Wunder mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung des Hexenpro- 
zesses seit den Zeiten Innocentiis viii. Frankf. 1828. Friedreich Litteratur- 
geschichte de path, und Ther. de psych. Krank. p. 127. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN THE ORDER OF THEIR FREQUENCY. 131 

In our days, cohabitation with the devil is much rarer than 
it formerly was ; amongst the many hundred insane who have 
come under our notice, we have not had one authentic case 
of the kind. Hallucinations of this nature have had more 
especially for their objects, angels, men whose attractions were 
heightened by imagination, and often the heads of the establish- 
ment. M. Macario has given several examples. 

Case LIV. Marguerite G. is a tall woman, fifty-nine years of 
age, thin and withered, with a laughing countenance. She has 
ever been devout and pious, passing all her leisure time in the 
church or churchyard, praying for the repose of sinners. She 
came to Mareville on the 7 th of April, 1842. 

This poor woman, at the crisis of her life, became deranged. 
She imbibed a hatred for her parents, believing that they sought 
to poison her ; but happily, she said, for the prevention of their 
culpable design, three cures, as pure as the sun, came to reside 
near her to keep guard over her. Whenever poisoned food was 
presented to her, they warned her not to eat it. These cures 
watched her by turns. Her parents, perceiving that in conse- 
quence they could not succeed with the poison, sought infernal 
aid, and raised the demons against her, who, she added, pursued 
and tormented her night and day. 

But God afflicts those only whom he loves. Four times in the 
day he inspired her with his grace — in the morning, at noon, at 
four in the afternoon, and on going to rest. Thus, when the 
demons appeared, she raised her hand, uttering the benediction, 
which drove off these malign spirits hastily ; but immediately 
legions took their place to torment her. She repeated the bene- 
dictions, the demons fled ; and in the constant repetition of this 
scene, the night was spent, so that she could not obtain any rest. 
At times, they were not infernal spirits who came to torment her; 
hideous corpses appeared in her chamber, spoke to her in mourn- 
ful and sepulchral voices, and stretched out their arms to strike 
her ; but Marguerite would make a noise, and then they disap- 
peared in smoke. They would soon, however, come back ; she 
would recommence her noise, and so on until dawn. 

During the day she was more calm and tranquil. During the 
night she prayed for the appearance of the sun's rays. She then 
became drowsy, and in her sleep, God and the Blessed Virgin 



132 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

appeared to her in dreams, exhorting her to patience and consol- 
ing her.* 

The cases which we have related, prove that there are insane 
persons who believe they have sexual intercourse with the devil ; 
but, in the greater number of instances, the figures are clothed 
in the human form.f 

Case LY. Madame B. is convinced that she is about to marry 
a noble and powerful man, who has all her sympathies. Preoc- 
cupied with this idea, she thinks nothing of her real husband. 
She tells me that she receives, nightly, visits from the angel 
Raphael, a handsome blonde, pale, and dressed in black, who 
speaks to her in the most gracious manner. The attendants 
quickly remove her mattress, as if to seek a man beneath. 

Case LVI. Mademoiselle R. sees persons to whom she speaks, 
and who address her. She is, moreover, constantly attended by 
her friend, whose love makes her the happiest of women. Ill- 
conditioned persons, whose aim may be understood, are constantly 
engaged in spreading disagreeable smells around her, and give 
her detestable hot dishes, fit to poison her. They beat her and 
bruise her arms. She frequently sees the people of the house 
with the head of a dog, a wolf, or of a rhinoceros. The figures 
are incessantly changing, or growing indistinct. She has a kind 
of ecstasy in which she sees angels. Esquirol, who examined 
her, fifteen years since, in concert with Alibert and ourselves, 
decided that she had hallucinations of all the senses, and illusions. 

Case LYII. Mademoiselle Z., aged seventeen, was brought to 
our house in consequence of a derangement caused by a love 
affair. Her symptoms appeared three days previously. Her 
countenance expresses the intoxication of happiness ; her friend 
does not leave her ; he follows her everywhere, and is prodigal 
of tender appellations ; if he is about to depart she kneels, begs 
him to forgive her, and entreats him not to give her up to de- 
spair. She sees him in the clouds; he is crowned with roses, 
and smiles sweetly on her. 

One of the most interesting scenes is, when she sings to her 
lover the romance of la Folle. So great is the interest excited 
that old patients, who have been for ten years in the asylum, 

* Macario, op. cit. 

t Jules Garrinet, Histoire de la Magie en France, p. 31. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN THE ORDER OF THEIR FREQUENCY. 133 

group themselves around, and listen with evident pleasure. 
Never was the part of Nina played with more truth and talent. 
It is the only time for twenty years in which I have seen a case 
of amorous madness that would serve as a theatrical model. The 
symptoms which almost always accompany this form of insanity 
render exact imitation almost impossible. 

In order to exhibit his tenderness, her lover brings her bou- 
quets, and makes her inhale the most delicious perfumes. "See 
these roses!" she cries; "the room is filled with their fragrance." 
Her discourse and looks have nothing wandering; they are all 
addressed to the same person. Indeed, she is quite an object 
for study. So entirely are her thoughts concentrated, that it is 
difficult to obtain any words from her. Her excitement subsid- 
ing, she again hears the voice of him whom she loves. But her 
reason soon returned, the hallucinations ceased, and, after eight 
days of retirement, all the symptoms disappeared. 

Nostalgic monomania occurs very seldom in lunatic asylums; 
but numerous examples are given by writers. In their delirium, 
the unhappy beings see their country, their fireside, their pa- 
rents, and their friends; with smiling lips, and joy in their coun- 
tenances, they converse with invisible beings, to whom they ex- 
press all the pleasure they experience in seeing them.* 

We attended a paralytic madman whose words were almost 
unintelligible, and who, at home, had transports of fury. So 
soon as he was separated from his family, he refused all kinds of 
nourishment; would not allow any one to come near him; and 
uttered horrible cries. For eight days he maintained a rigorous 
abstinence. Convinced that a return home would alone save him, 
we wrote to his wife. As soon as he saw her, he consented to 
take some broth, and that man, who had just before appeared 
dying, had strength enough to walk to the carriage, supported 
by only one person. 

Hallucinations and illusions almost always accompany calen- 
tura, a febrile malady peculiar to mariners. In fact, the irre- 
sistible desire that leads them to leap into the sea is occasioned 

* See Castelnau's Considerations sur la Nostalgie, Paris, 1806. — An- 
dresse, Dissert, inaug. psychica-nostalgiee, adumbratio pathologica, Berol. 
Beauchamp. — Memoire de la Societe Medic, d'emul. Paris, 1798. — Pelle- 
grini, De Nostalgia, in Orteschi, Diario Medico, t. iv. p. 372. 



134 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

by the fact that that element appears to them like a plain of 
green turf enamelled with flowers ; they are eager to tread the 
fertile, fresh, and lovely fields, in which their imagination paints 
the shade and perfume of the most delicious groves. On other 
occasions, it is to escape from painful ideas or fantastic appari- 
tions that they try to quit the vessel. 

The madness of drunkards is almost always united with 
hallucinations and illusions ; the interest which attaches to this 
variety of insanity has tempted us to give it a special chapter, 
the more so as it may take on many different forms of madness. 

Vampirism and lycanthropy, which, several centuries ago, as- 
sumed the form of an epidemic, had also for their epiphenomena 
hallucinations and illusions. The other varieties of monomania 
may present this symptom ; but the species on which we have 
dwelt appear to be most frequent. We have said enough to pre- 
vent the necessity of entering more into detail. 

Recapitulation. — Hallucinations seem to prefer the form of 
monomania ; they are most easily detected in this kind of deli- 
rium. Hallucinations of hearing and of sight are most common ; 
then follow those of touch, taste, and smell, which are much less 
common. They rarely exist alone. 

Lypemania, demonology, erotomania, nostalgia, and calentura, 
frequently present the same combination. 

Hallucinations in monomania are in accordance with the cause, 
the nature of the evil, and the character of the ideas and the 
passions exhibited by the individual. 

Hallucinations of demonomania are common, and much more 
frequent than Esquirol believed; the incubus occurs in some 
cases of madness. 

Sexual hallucinations arise from exaggerated hysteric symp- 
toms, and, in a great many instances, are occasioned by uterine 
derangement. 

Hallucinations have frequently put on the character of an 
epidemic in certain varieties of monomania. 

Illusions often accompany hallucinations in monomania. 

Hallucinations do not develop themselves with equal facility 
in all kinds of monomania. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ON HALLUCINATIONS IN STUPOR. 

The greater number of persons affected with stupor have hallucinations and illu- 
sions — Symptomatology — Arrangement of hallucinations and illusions in some 
patients — Cases of stupor — Remarks on this malad}- — Recapitulation. 

There are some lunatics, who, like statues, appear to com- 
prehend nothing that is passing around them ; with fixed eyes 
and gaping mouth, they might be taken for idiots. Georget has 
given the name of stupor to this particular kind of madness, 
which Esquirol looked on as a variety of dementia (acute de- 
mentia) ; and M. Baillarger as the highest degree of a variety of 
hypochondria. 

M. Etoc, in an excellent dissertation which he published on 
this malady in 1833,* remarked that insane persons had hallu- 
cinations, but that they were confused and misty. M. Baillarger 
has given more circumstantial details relative to the errors of 
sensations observable in insane stupor. f According to this 
author, everything that surrounds them is transformed. They 
are a prey to all kinds of hallucinations and illusions ; among 
others that they are inhabitants of a desert ; that they live in a 
house of ill fame; that they reside in a foreign country; that 
they are condemned to the galleys or to prison. Some mistake 
a bath-house for hell ; the baths for boats ; a blister mark for the 
brand of a convict ; lunatics for the dead revived, for prisoners, 
for prostitutes, for disguised soldiers, and women for men. 
Others see hideous and menacing faces ; it seems to them that 
everybody is drunk. They perceive around them carriages laden 
with coffins, and their relations undergoing punishments ; they 

* De la Stupidite chez les Aliened, in 4to. Paris, 1833. 
f De Petat designe chez les ali^nes sous le nom de stupidite, Annates 
Mid. Psychol., Nos. 1 and 2, Paris, 1843. 



136 



ON HALLUCINATIONS. 



see shadows, craters, fathomless abysses, and subterranean pit- 
falls. 

Others, again, hear alarming words ; they are menaced with 
death, and with flames; they hear insults; their beds are filled 
with noises of bells and drums ; guns are fired around them ; 
their friends struggle with enemies, and implore their aid. Some 
being interrogated on all the actions of their lives, reply that 
they hear the noise of a machine with which infants are tor- 
tured; their bodies are perforated with balls, and their blood 
flows on the earth; some one is on their breast, smothering 
them. 

In this description, we must recognize the highest degree of 
melancholic monomania. 

In the nine cases which the paper of M. Baillarger contains, 
hallucinations and illusions are distributed in the following 
manner : — 



Hallucinate 


ms of hearing and sight 


. 4 


a a 




sight 


. 2 


a u 




smell 


. 2 


u a 




taste 


. 1 


u a 




touch 


. 1 


Illusions of hearing and sight 


. 4 


U 


sight 


. 


. 4 


u 


taste 


. . • • 


. 2 


u 


smell 


. • . . 


. 1 



The hallucinations were almost always mingled with illusions. 
In two cases, there were illusions only ; in one, hallucinations 
occurred alone. None of these cases presented hallucinations 
and illusions of all the senses. In three out of six cases of 
stupor, Messrs. Aubanel and Thore have noticed hallucinations. 

A number of actions apparently automatic, or without con- 
nection with exterior objects, were explained afterwards as due 
to the influence of hallucinations and illusions — another argu- 
ment in favor of the opinion that the strangest acts performed 
by monomaniacs, and, above all, by maniacs, are always caused 
by a hallucination or an illusion. 

Case LYIII. — Mademoiselle R., aged thirty, a religious no- 
vice, entered the Salpdtriere on the 12th of July, 1842, under 



HALLUCINATIONS IN STUPOR. 137 

the care of M. Mitivie. On his visit, he found the patient in 
the following state: She was standing, immovable; her counte- 
nance was sad and heavy ; her eyes wide open and fixed : " I 
vainly endeavored," says the author, " to obtain a few words 
from her. It might be supposed that she either did not hear, or 
did not comprehend what I said. She refused food. Her eyes 
were often slowly and mechanically turned towards the door ; on 
placing her in bed, she recommenced the same action. She ap- 
peared to pay no attention to what was passing around her. 

" Towards the close of the month, a remarkable change took 
place; she spoke long, and with facility: her countenance be- 
came animated, and her ideas sparkling. There was no longer 
occasion to interrogate her ; she took the lead in questioning. 
Yesterday she was visited by the Sisters of St. Antoine's Hos- 
pital, who, she said, had been very useful in giving clearness to 
her ideas. From that time her cure was completed. 

" The treatment was baths, a douche, and occupation. The 
following is the account Mademoiselle R. gave me of her in- 
tellectual state during her malady : — 

" She had no idea of being in a hospital; the women who 
surrounded her she imagined to be disguised soldiers (a very 
common illusion with women, and which is only a symptom of 
uterine excitability). When she was taken to the bath, in which 
were several other patients, she attempted to drown herself to 
escape the violence of the imaginary soldiers. All the faces she 
saw were hideous and menacing ; it seemed as if everybody was 
intoxicated. She thought that Paris was given up to fire and 
slaughter, and that all the nuns were strangled. Every instant 
she expected a similar fate. She thought the floor concealed a 
vast trap, into which she feared to fall. The noise which was 
made in scrubbing the boards became to her that of a saw which 
they were using to raze the house ; she dreaded to see a vast 
fire burst out. Of all that she heard, she could only remember 
these words, ' We must kill her, ive must burn her,' etc. She 
had a constant buzzing in her ears, which prevented her hearing 
what was said. A low voice asked her the particulars of her 
life, and she replied to it ; she refused to eat, fearing she would 
be poisoned. 

" Mademoiselle R. had short lucid intervals ; but she soon 
fell back into stupor ; she seemed to have a bandage over her 



138 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

eyes. She believed that her cure was effected by a cold water 
douche, which acted so powerfully as to make her cry out. 

" She subsequently described the state from which she had 
recovered with considerable force of expression. ' She could not 
compare it,' she said, ' to anything but a bad dream.' ' 

Case LIX. — M. B., twenty-five years of age, principal in a 
government office, was brought to Charenton on the 12th of Au- 
gust, 1833. 

On two different occasions he had been attacked with parox- 
ysms of mental alienation. The first symptoms of the last 
attack appeared to be those of violent frenzy. On entering, 
M. B. was pale ; his eyes fixed ; his countenance had lost all 
expression, and denoted profound stupor. He remained the 
entire day in one place perfectly dumb, and appeared indifferent 
to all that surrounded him. Memory seemed entirely gone. 
His stupor was such that we were obliged to force him to eat ; 
and he was so unclean that we were forced to substitute a long 
linen blouse for his clothes. 

A blister on the nape of the neck produced favorable results ; 
and towards the end of December he was completely cured. 

The state in which M. B. remained, during three months, can 
be best described by comparing it to a long dream. He said 
that everything around him was transformed. He believed in a 
universal annihilation. The ground trembled and opened under 
his feet ; every moment he felt on the point of being engulfed in 
its fathomless abysses. When he held on to persons near to him, 
it was in order to prevent their falling down the precipices, that 
resembled the craters of volcanoes. M. B. took the bath-room 
for hell (for which reason he resisted entering it), and the baths 
for boats. He thought that all who were with him were drown- 
ing. It seemed to him that his blood had never ceased to flow 
on the ground since he was bled. The blister which was placed 
on his neck was the brand of a convict, and he thought himself 
disgraced forever by this mark of infamy. He could not under- 
stand who all the strange people were by whom he was sur- 
rounded, but finally concluded that they were resuscitated corpses. 
He saw his brother in the midst of torments ; and heard inces- 
santly the cries of his parents who were being strangled, and 
who implored his aid. Above all was heard the voice of his 
uncle, who was his benefactor. Every shriek was a dagger to 



HALLUCINATIONS IN STUPOR. 139 

him. Fire-arms were discharged all around him; balls pierced 
him through without harming him, but killed other persons. In 
his mind all was chaos, confusion, destruction. He no longer 
distinguished day and night; months seemed years; he accused 
himself of all the evil that was done, and therefore attempted 
several times to destroy himself. 

The memoir of M. Baillarger contains a number of instances 
of stupor ; but we fear that this physician has confounded the 
state of immobility, very frequent in hypochondriacs, with real 
stupor ; and that, with him, the appearance has, in some cases, 
been taken for the reality. In this case, he has only fol- 
lowed the example of many estimable men, who, in their works 
on typhoid fever, rank with that grievous complaint certain mor- 
bid states that have only a delusive appearance of analogy to it. 
With this exception, M. Baillarger's work has thrown a new light 
on this form of mental disease, and shown that this malady is 
principally characterized by numerous hallucinations and illu- 
sions, which form an imaginary world for the patient. 

Dr. Delasiauve* opposes the opinion of M. Baillarger, and 
considers stupor as a peculiar state. According to him, hallu- 
cinations are a consequence of stupor, the result of obtuseness of 
the intellect, and not the result of melancholic preoccupation. 

In the article "Stupor," contained in the Supplement au Dic- 
tionnaire des Dictionnaires de Medecine, we have observed that 
the malady, like sleep, can have two different states, the one cha- 
racterized by a complete suspension of the mind, and the other 
by the existence of dreams. 

Recapitulation. — Stupor, successively considered as a new 
state, a variety of madness, and the highest degree of a variety 
of hypochondria, is almost always accompanied by hallucinations 
and illusions. 

In the cases cited, hallucinations and illusions were constantly 
observed; most generally they were combined. In three cases, 
one alone existed. 

The most usual form was that which occurred with derange- 
ment of the organs of sight and hearing. 

In almost all the examples furnished, the conduct, actions, and 

* Du diagnostic differentielle de la Lypemanie, published in the Annates 
Mtdico-Psychologiques, Juillet, 1851. 



140 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

whimsicalities of the afflicted were explained by hallucinations 
or illusions. 

The errors of the senses, so numerous and of such varied 
character, to which these insane persons are subject, create for 
them a special and imaginary world. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ON HALLUCINATIONS IN MANIA. 

4 

On the frequency of hallucinations in mania — Why ? — Abstract of hallucinations 
in mania — Cases — Observations on the inclination to steal — Progress of halhi- 
cinations — Hallucinations may be symptomatic — Remarks on the influence of 
the sexual organs — Hallucinations in puerperal mania — Effects of hallucina- 
tions and illusions on maniacs — Recapitulation. 

The rapidity with which thoughts, recollections, and objects 
succeed each other in the mind of the maniac ; the difficulty he 
finds in making comparisons, and fixing his attention, must pow- 
erfully unite to favor the production of hallucinations and illu- 
sions. 

This combination is, therefore, very usual in mania. Messrs. 
Aubanel and Thore have computed that 54 out of 181 maniacs 
had hallucinations. In the cases they noticed, 



Illusions 


of 


sight 


occurred 


9 times. 


a 




hearing 


u 


7 " 


Hallucinations of 


hearing 


a 


23 " 


it 




sight 


a 


21 " 


a 




taste 


a 


5 " 


a 




touch 


a 


2 " 


a 




smell 


a 


1 time. 


a 




the internals " 


2 times. 



None of these were cases of hallucination of all the senses. 
These physicians truly remark that the number must be greater, 
since many hallucinations escape notice in the midst of maniacal 
excitement, and by consequence of the other disturbances in the 
midst of which they exist. 

Of the maniacs in our establishment at our last census, 



142 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

2 had hallucinations of hearing and sight. 

3 " " hearing. 

2 " " sight, and illusions of the same sense. 

It will be perceived that all our maniacs had either illusions 
or hallucinations. Although we cannot draw conclusions from 
so small a number, yet incessant observation authorizes us to 
believe that the proportion is considerable. 

Case LX. — M. P., aged thirty-nine, tall, fair-skinned, with a 
highly developed muscular system, and a temperament lymphatic- 
sanguine, was remarkable for a large and high forehead, and in- 
telligent countenance. He spoke several languages. His apti- 
tude in business gained him a well-merited reputation ; his only 
fault being an excessive confidence in his talents, and a belief 
that he could do anything. 

For twenty years, he managed one of the first houses of busi- 
ness in his native city with so much success that the principal 
retired on a large fortune, leaving him to direct the establish- 
ment. All thought that he had obtained the summit of his 
desires, when it became evident that his conduct was no longer 
the same ; he entered into commercial speculations which dif- 
fered greatly from those he carried on as an equal partner with 
his former principal, and employed in them considerable sums. 
These speculations, which put a stopta) the chance of making a 
rapid fortune, were not conducted with the talent which he had 
heretofore exhibited. Warm discussions took place between the 
two merchants, and they agreed finally that neither should act 
separately. Notwithstanding this solemn promise, Mr. P. con- 
tinued to act on his own account, alleging in his justification 
that he was sure of his game, and would return capital and 
interest. 

Here we may introduce a highly interesting observation. It 
frequently happens that a man noted for probity and integrity 
becomes dishonest, embezzles, and robs ; then there is wonder 
and indignation ; and the reprehensible acts are punished. The 
unhappy being has undoubtedly expiated in a prison the fault of 
a disease. Facts of this nature have so often been presented to 
us, that we would call the special attention of magistrates to this 
form of derangement. A patient was recommended to us by 
Dr. Ollivier d' Angers ; it was necessary to ascertain whether he 



HALLUCINATIONS IN MANIA. 143 

was really insane, for, in examining his accounts, there was 
found a defalcation of 10,000 francs. His family, much alarmed, 
hastened to indemnify the plaintiffs. An examination of two 
months left us no doubt on the subject ; it was a case of insanity, 
with paralysis. The embezzlements took place during the growth 
of the disease. C, during his employ in a banking-house, had 
a tremendous fall, and struck his head; but he was able to re- 
sume his occupation. On proving the accounts, a deficit of 
several thousand francs was discovered ; on account of his capa- 
city and probity the prosecution was discontinued ; he was dis- 
missed. Sometime afterwards he was placed under my care. 
I observed a general paralysis, without other derangement of 
the faculties than a weakness of memory; his one fixed idea was 
to return to his situation, where he said he was expected. As 
in the preceding case, all that occurred during the growth of the 
disease had faded from his remembrance. The man is still 
moving about ; but his mind is irrevocably destroyed. 

Thus, when a man whose conduct has always been irreproach- 
able, changes his habits and commits eccentric and reprehensible 
acts, he should be carefully watched, never lost sight of; and 
often, at the end of a few months, more or less, a mental derange- 
ment will appear, which, in most cases, exhibits itself in insanity 
accompanied by general paralysis. 

The merchant who patronized Mr. P. was much surprised at 
his conduct. But, as he was under great obligations to him, 
and had taken due precaution to ward off any unfavorable re- 
sult, he contented himself with watching him. The mystery 
was soon explained ; Mr. P. was seized with a violent attack of 
mania, that lasted fifteen days. His recovery was rapid, and 
apparently entire ; one only of his near kinsmen, who watched 
him closely, observed that his ideas were neither so clear nor 
forcible as formerly, whilst his self-esteem was augmented. 

Mr. P. returned to his business, without resigning his hazard- 
ous speculations. More than once they must have caused him 
bitter regret. Probably, he was himself conscious of the change 
in his intellectual powers, and was much affected by the circum- 
stance, for a fresh and more violent attack came on towards the 
close of September, the description of which, as given by his 
relative, will never be effaced from my mind. 



144 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

"I was," said he, "alone in the country with Mr. P. and his 
wife, when the attack came on ; our house was far from any 
habitation. For several hours he wandered about restlessly, 
opening and shutting doors violently ; every instant added to his 
fury. Suddenly, he exclaimed that he was God. ' Kneel down!' 
he continued, in a terrible voice, and with an inflamed counte- 
nance. ' I will, I obey, because I know it is God who com- 
mands.' i That is well, get up. Now lie down on the bed, that 
I may operate on you.' He then passed his hands over my en- 
tire person, tickling the soles of my feet. If I moved, he said: 
' You have no patience; I must begin again.' I took care not 
to exhibit any signs of fear, and to all his commands, I replied : 
4 1 obey, since God ordains it.' 

" This frightful scene lasted for four hours. Flight was im- 
possible, for he had taken care to close all the doors ; besides 
which, he was too strong for me. At length the crisis arrived : 
' 1 must kill you !' he cried, in accents of fury which it is impos- 
sible to describe. It was no longer time to temporize. I sprang 
up and grappled him. The struggle was terrible. He bit me 
till my blood flowed in torrents ; and roared out in his rage, 
calling me Satan. My strength began to fail ; I was on the 
point of yielding to the power of a furious madman ; but an 
idea struck me as by inspiration. 'My friend,' said I, 'God 
commands me to obey you ; but let me place robes around you, 
in order to render you the homage that is your due.' 

" The words were hardly pronounced, when he unclasped his 
hold, became calm, and assisted in the execution of the idea that 
had so happily occurred to me. I bound him with cords, nap- 
kins, and sheets, with the aid of his wife, whom also he would have 
sacrificed. Thus situated, he tried to rise ; when, comprehend- 
ing that he was bound, his transports of fury were so violent, 
that, if several men had not run to our assistance, the results 
would have been dreadful." 

When Mr. P. was brought to my establishment, he still bore 
the marks of the struggle he had maintained. I had him put 
into a bath, where he remained for eight hours, receiving a con- 
stant flow of water on his head — a method which I employ very 
successfully in such cases. Occasionally, he was calm ; then he 
declared he was God, Jesus Christ, or an emperor, and that we 



HALLUCINATIONS IN MANIA. 145 

were all devils. He saw before him heaps of gold and precious 
stones, which he lavished on all around him. 

During the night, he had a fit of frenzy, which was exhibited 
by howlings. With his feet and elbows, he demolished every- 
thing in his room. He was completely out of his mind. In his 
lucid intervals, he said that he had fought with persons who were 
throwing shovelsfull of earth on his head. 

The words Icing, queen, and guillotine, occurred often in his 
ravings, without our being able to bring them into any connec- 
tion. 

Five days afterwards, he struck one of the keepers with an 
iron bar that he had torn from the window-frame. He afterwards 
explained this act by saying that a voice had revealed to him 
that he could raise the dead ; he had, therefore, intended to kill 
the man, cut off his head, and then revive him. He constantly 
saw lions, leopards, and chameleons, of which he gave vivid de- 
crip tions. 

As his malady increased, he ceased using the French tongue, 
which he spoke without accent, and with as much purity as his 
own. All his soliloquies were in English. It is a peculiarity, 
already pointed out, and which our experience has confirmed, 
that the insane, during their delirium, always return to the use 
of their native tongue, although it is sometimes less familiar 
to them than that of the country in which they reside. 

Mr. P. frequently imitated the sound of trumpets. At such 
times, he thought he was hunting lions and leopards. "When he 
killed them, he uttered cries of joy. At other times, his walls 
were tapestried with gold, and covered with precious stones. 
The persons about him changed their identity, and he spoke to 
them in accordance with his conception of their character. He 
addressed them with clearness, relative to events with which 
they were acquainted. At times, he imagined he was increas- 
ing in height, and in order to avoid reaching the ceiling, he 
doubled himself up to but half his size. 

These hallucinations and illusions continued uninterruptedly 
for two months. His appetite was good, his countenance un- 
derwent no alteration, his eye was always bright and intelligent, 
But he then began to show signs of failing, his limbs fell 
away; and it became evident that he would sink under the seve- 
10 



146 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

rity of the disease. In the third month of his residence in my 
establishment his speech became thick and embarrassed; every 
symptom of congestion of the brain was developed; and two 
days after, he expired in a state of coma. 

How could so powerful an organization pay a fatal tribute to 
insanity! This question was at length solved. We learned that 
a marriage, contracted against the consent of his parents and 
friends, had been a fruitful source of disagreement and vexation. 
The cruel death of a near relative, who was massacred at Rome 
by an ignorant and furious mob, by whom he was accused, during 
a cholera epidemic, of poisoning children, had also been a sub- 
ject of much grief to him ; for, with men of his temperament, 
the impossibility of revenge is a great torment. 

Hallucinations may, with maniacs, be exhibited at the com- 
mencement of the malady, may precede it, may coexist with and 
cease with it, or they may exist after it. 

Those of hearing and sight most frequently coexist with it. 

Sometimes the one replaces the other. 

Very frequently they are accompanied by illusions. 

It sometimes happens that illusions are transformed into hal- 
lucinations, and vice versa. A maniac thinks that all the per- 
sons who approach him are frightful animals; then, by a process 
natural to man, he detaches the image from the idea, places it 
before his eyes, and, frightened at his own creation, howls, and 
engages in furious combats with the imaginary animal. At other 
times these maniacs, after thinking they recognize acquaintances 
in strangers, see those persons before them, speak to them, and 
receive answers. These changes are observable in other forms 
of mental aberration. 

Hallucinations, like mental diseases, may be symptomatic. 
A woman was attacked with a violent complaint in the intes- 
tines; she became deranged, wept, sang, and talked incoherently. 
In the midst of her delirium, she thought she saw large fish in 
the yard, for which she angled. At times, she exhibited much 
fear, believing these fish were about to eat her. In proportion 
as the intestinal affection diminished, these ideas began to de- 
crease, and when she quitted us, she was entirely cured. 

Hallucinations and illusions may occasion dissoluteness of an 
•extraordinary character. 

Case LXI. Mademoiselle 0. had been remarkable for her 



HALLUCINATIONS IN MANIA. 147 

excellent judgment, so much so as to be constantly consulted by 
her friends. This fact, which was attested by a number of per- 
sons very capable of appreciating her mind, proved to me that, 
if the absence of judgment be one of the distinctive characteris- 
tics of insanity, the rule is not without exception. Who does 
not remember the case of a man, whose powerful mind assisted 
in maintaining the peace of the world, and yet, who fell a victim 
to insanity in the full vigor of manhood. 

The first symptoms of her disease were manifested by a kind 
of presentiment. She begged her friends to place her in a 
certain establishment, which she named, in case she went mad. 
The request surprised them much, for at this time she conversed 
rationally, and had exhibited no singularity of conduct. 

Mademoiselle 0. soon thought she heard voices insulting 
her. They threatened to cut her into four parts, to make mince- 
meat of her, and to devour her. These voices desired her to 
swallow everything. Obedient to this order, she successively 
introduced into her stomach, earrings, pins, mittens, and would 
have swallowed a set of dominoes, if, suspecting her intention, 
they had not been taken from her. This lady either laughed 
when she saw herself the object of our notice, or flew into a 
rage ; she struck, and attempted to scratch us, and said we were 
all devils. Her incoherent discourse proved the disorder of her 
faculties. She was being sought for in order to be taken to 
China; devils maltreated her; we were Messieurs So and So; 
then we changed into bandits and villains. By a sudden and 
incomprehensible transition, these wild fancies disappeared as 
though blown away by the wind, and a sensible, instructive con- 
versation struck every one with astonishment, so incomprehen- 
sible was so rapid a change. 

This young lady also exhibited a perversion of cutaneous 
sensitiveness, which made her take pleasure in picking off her 
skin. This is a symptom we have often noticed with the insane, 
especially hypochondriacs. This mania was carried to such a 
length that we often counted as many as twelve large sores on 
different parts of her body. 

Hard work and fatigue, with certain changes in the physical 
functions which occur in middle life, appear to have caused the 
mental malady of this lady. 

There were times when she was convinced that she grew thin 



148 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

and shrank visibly, although she was enormously stout. Once 
she entreated a lady to put her into her umbrella or her hat 
that she might be more easily moved. At other times, she fan- 
cied herself metamorphosed into a cat or a dog, and imitated, 
for hours together, the cries of the different animals. 

These illusions were replaced by another that lasted some 
time. She complained that every one accused her of being a 
man. Though prior to her derangement she was extremely 
chaste and correct in every particular, she became most revolt- 
ingly immodest. 

It has been said that the generative instinct has its seat in 
the brain ; but how does it happen that this organ should be 
aroused at the moment its functions are about to cease? Ac- 
cording to a law of physiology, ought not long inaction to induce 
atrophy? Another reflection also arises: Why is it that females 
who have been well brought up, use gross words and commit 
immodest actions ; whilst those of loose morals appear reserved? 
The reply, it appears to us, may be found in the organization. 
An instinct may be repressed by education and religion ; but 
never destroyed. 

She remained for an entire year in this state of mania : a 
prey to continual hallucinations and illusions. At one time she 
saw devils and heard voices ; then she was visited by strangers 
and by friends ; poisoned food was served up for her ; her 
apartment was filled with bad odors, or a dreadful noise was 
made to prevent her sleeping. Sometimes she pretended that 
we had beaten her, and showed the sores she had made in 
tearing off her skin. Sometimes she thought herself the 
Duchess de Berri, and that she had a little son. At such times, 
she would seek her child everywhere, and thought she saw him 
in every object which met her eye. 

After this period, we remarked that she became calmer, and 
had prolonged lucid intervals. She was permitted to descend 
to the garden. Soon her reason was entirely restored. It has 
been asserted that, after such prolonged attacks, the intellectual 
faculties are always somewhat impaired. Mademoiselle 0. 
was an exception to this rule ; for she passed entire days with 
us, either engaged in conversation, or in giving instruction to 
my children. The clearness of her explanations, the facility 
with which she selected examples, and the excellence of her 



HALLUCINATIONS IN MANIA. 149 

method, daily excited our surprise. Her memory was prodi- 
gious ; nothing had been forgotten during the long night of her 
malady. For ten entire days, this miraculous resurrection was 
sustained; but by degrees her brain was again filled with absurd 
and singular ideas. She would stop in the midst of the most 
sensible conversation to tell us that she was not a Chinese, that 
she had never been to Africa, and that she had not cut any 
one's throat. Her disorder recurred in all its intensity ; and 
from this relapse until her death, which occurred four months 
afterwards, she had intermitting periods of calm and madness. 
In her paroxysms, she would undress to show that her back had 
been changed ; that she was an animal, or that she was Made- 
moiselle B., one of the boarders, or rather to prove the con- 
trary, in a manner similar to those ancient rhetoricians, who 
maintained the 'pro and con of a given proposition. Another 
peculiarity of this derangement is, that Mademoiselle 0. 
frequently wrote letters in the midst of the most incoherent 
discourse, without introducing one word that could betray the 
state of her mind, a circumstance which, on an inquest, would 
have been adduced as proof of the soundness of her judgment. 

There is a variety of mania to which circumstances have 
given the name of puerperal mania, or the madness of women 
during childbed confinement. The strangest hallucinations of 
sight and hearing throw the patient into inexpressible agitation, 
and by turns they endure all the tortures of the fear of death, 
and of poisoning, and all the agonies of despair.* 

M. Esquirol, who has published an excellent treatise on this 
subject, estimates the number of women who are attacked with 
this mania to be seven per cent, of all cases of derangement — 
an estimate which appears to us to require reconsideration. He 
has not directed attention to the phenomenon of hallucinations 
and illusions, which Mr. Morel, on the contrary, considers fre- 
quent. He, however, relates four cases in which there was a 
combination of these two symptoms. 

In an article published by us on the Insanity of Women 
in Childbed,! we have noticed hallucinations, and have shown 
those of hearing to be very common. The women hear voices 

* Morel, Memoire sur la Manie des Femmes en couches, Paris, 1842. 
f Bibliotheque des Medecins Praticiens, t. ix. p. 472. 



150 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ringing in their ears. In some unhappy cases, these voices 
impel them to commit suicide. Out of 111 cases of puerperal 
madness, collected in Bedlam, 32 had a tendency to suicide. 

Hallucinations and illusions in maniacs occasion resolutions 
and actions, which are incomprehensible at first sight, but to 
which a deeper knowledge of these two states almost always 
furnish a natural explanation. A madman looks fiercely at you; 
he is about to spring upon you and to beat you. He acts thus 
because an illusion has changed your appearance into that of an 
enemy ; or he thinks that you are making grimaces at him, or 
insulting him. Here is one who springs out of the window, 
because he thinks that the street is on a level with his room, or 
that he is stepping into a garden filled with fruits and flowers. 
Another throws his bread into the stream, or crushes it beneath 
his feet, to make it more tender, and to give it another flavor. 

Many maniacs refuse food on their entrance into a hospital, 
believing it to be poisoned. Some look extatically on the sky, 
because they conceive the clouds to be of gold, or to represent 
knights and palaces. One of our patients turned continually 
on his heel ; we learned that he was an old engineer for many 
years in the establishment of Dr. Blanche, who, by means of 
rotary machinery, raised water to an immense height. 

There are others who see animals, insects, or brilliant colors, 
on their clothes, or in their straw. The slightest noises occasion 
a variety of impressions ; voices threaten, cannon are fired, or 
concerts are performed. These false sensations often occasion 
reprehensible or dangerous actions. Some maniacs kill, because 
they see the devil before them ; others die of hunger, burn or 
mutilate themselves, in obedience to a command. Facts of 
this kind are numerous. It is very difficult to trace them to 
their real causes, from the agitation and irascibility of the 
patient, and from the impossibility of obtaining an answer to 
any question. These eccentricities arise from hallucinations 
and illusions. 

Recapitulation. — Mania is a form of madness which is often 
combined with hallucinations and illusions. The union of these 
two symptoms has struck us as more common in mania than in 
other forms of insanity. 

Ealse impressions may be exhibited at the commencement 



HALLUCINATIONS IN MANIA. 151 

of mania, during its progress, and at its close, or they may re- 
place it. 

Hallucination and illusion may he the causes of mania, which 
takes their place, and of which it is then but the transforma- 
tion. 

Of all hallucinations and illusions, those of hearing and sight 
are the most common; they are very frequently combined, may 
exist singly, or may replace each other. 

Illusions are sometimes transformed into hallucinations, and 
vice versa. 

Hallucinations, most usually primitive in mania, are sometimes 
symptomatic. 

Puerperal mania is frequently combined with hallucinations 
and illusions, which considerably augment the sickness. 

The hallucinations and illusions of maniacs occasion a multi- 
tude of singular resolutions, and lead to actions of an injurious 
and dangerous character. 

It is often difficult to prove the hallucinations and illusions of 
maniacs, especially in a large establishment, in consequence of 
their perturbation and the versatility of their ideas ; but pro- 
longed and attentive observation leaves no doubt on the mind 
that both of these morbid states are developed among the greater 
number of these afflicted beings. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

OF HALLUCINATIONS IN DEMENTIA. 

Section I. — Hallucinations more frequent in dementia than is generally sup- 
posed — To what may the fact be attributed — Division of dementia into mono- 
maniac and maniac, complete and senile — Abstract of hallucinations in dementia 
— Case of monomaniac dementia — Case of maniac dementia — Difficulty of dis- 
tinguishing the shades of difference — Hallucinations may be of an intermittent 
character — Case of complete dementia — Case of senile dementia — Recapitula- 
tion. 

Section II. — Hallucinations exist in dementia with general paralysis — Abstract — 
Cases — Recapitulation. 

Section III. — Hallucinations viewed in relation to imbecility, idiotism, and cre- 
tinism — They may exist in the first, but they are never observed in the last 
two — Recapitulation. 

SECT. L— OF HALLUCINATIONS IN DEMENTIA. 

If the meaning of the word dementia were restricted to the 
definition at present generally accorded to it, it is certain that 
the insane comprised in this category would rarely exhibit the 
phenomena of hallucinations and illusions. But from the stage 
at which the intellectual faculties begin to fail, to the period of 
their complete obliteration, the degrees are infinite. 

There are some deranged persons who have but a momentary 
wandering, and who resume conversation, as if no hiatus had 
occurred in their minds. With such, the signs of dementia only 
exhibit themselves at intervals more or less distant. Fre- 
quently — and this fact has more particularly engaged our atten- 
tion — we find in dementia the maniac and monomaniac types, so 
that we can establish the following classification ; monomaniac 
dementia, maniac dementia, complete dementia, to which must be 
added senile dementia. This distinction appears to us of suffi- 
cient importance to be made hereafter the subject of a special 
work. 

In considering dementia under this new aspect, it will not 



8 times 


3 


a 


3 


a 


2 


a 


5 


a 



HALLUCINATIONS IN DEMENTIA. 153 

excite surprise, that our experience differs materially from that 
of Messrs. Aubanel and Thore. Thus, whilst these physicians 
encountered only one case of hallucinations, in 45 of dementia; 
we have observed 16 cases out of 21 in which hallucinations and 
illusions existed. The combination was as follows : — 

Hallucinations of hearing and sight 

" " of hearing and touch 

" " of hearing 
Illusions of sight 
Neither hallucinations nor illusions 

Case LXII. Mademoiselle C, seventy-two years of age, did 
not show any symptoms of derangement of mind until her 
seventy-first year. At that period, instead of leading a seden- 
tary life, according to her usual habits, she travelled continu- 
ally. Her family, being unable to persuade her to remain quiet, 
brought her to my establishment. This lady then fancied that 
some treacherous person had secured her papers; that she was 
his victim; that, to wrong her, he had forged her signature; and 
that his object was to obtain her property. In this accusation 
she included three other persons. Her discourse was rambling, 
nor did she recollect what she had said. Her memory was weak- 
ened, but she often spoke with clearness. This state lasted for 
entire days. 

On interrogating her, we found that, for several months past, 
she had seen in the evening, and particularly in the night, per- 
sons around her bed, who, besides making noises, held conver- 
sations that she did not understand. "When I was in the 
country," she would say, "I was followed or accompanied by 
men of consequence, who sometimes disappeared, sometimes 
rode in cabriolets. I very often met an officer from the castle, 
who appeared as soon as I got into the street ; his mission was 
to protect me." She replied to all questions so rationally, that 
the examining magistrates would have been embarrassed if she 
had not returned to the subject of the traitors, amongst whom 
she accused several honorable persons. As soon as the magis- 
trates were gone, she assured us that it was a plot, stating that 
they were disguised, but that she had recognized them. 

On some days, this lady, whose recollection of names and 



154 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

persons was so good, and who replied so rationally to all the 
questions addressed to her, entirely lost her reason. She 
thought that the king paid her board ; that I had created a 
double, and was not myself; but after a few minutes, she did 
not recollect what she had said. Amidst her greatest wander- 
ings, she always maintained the idea that she had been con- 
ducted to my house by an individual under a false name, and 
that this imprisonment had no other object than to deprive her 
of her property. 

Mademoiselle C. often spoke in the night to imaginary per- 
sons. Sometimes she replied in a friendly or respectful man- 
ner ; at others, she used insulting language. One morning she 
assured me that one of the boarders, Madame D., had been to see 
her in the middle of the night (each one was locked in her own 
room) to tell her that she was the Goddess of Folly, which was 
acknowledged throughout the country. Then her ideas changing, 
she fancied that the portrait of Fate was being painted; that 
she was Madame Georges, that I ought to let her out to unmask 
the evil-doers. All this was pronounced in a low and confidential 
tone, in order to prevent the supposed persons from hearing her. 

For two years, the condition of Mademoiselle 0. did not alter; 
she continued to believe herself the victim of treachery, and 
said that several persons had committed faults for which she 
was shut up. Almost daily she begged me to allow her to go to 
church, but her intention was to escape. Whenever she was 
asked details relative to her business or concerning her acquaint- 
ances, she replied correctly, and her memory, although weakened 
in many points, had great tenacity for the names and characters 
of those whom she had not seen for many years. This lady died 
at the age of eighty, having the same hallucinations, without 
any augmentation of her insanity, and preserving great firmness 
of character. 

There are some persons affected with dementia, who are very 
little influenced by external impressions ; their intermediate ideas 
are gone; their memory is impaired; but they can, nevertheless, 
engage in and follow, for the moment, a conversation. A young 
lady in this condition, was attacked with hallucinations. She 
thought that her brother, who had been several years deceased, 
lived in one of the rooms of the establishment ; she heard hiin 
sigh, and utter lamentations. Convinced that some persons were 



HALLUCINATIONS IN DEMENTIA. 155 

beating and desirous of killing him, she became agitated, ran 
from right to left, called him, and uttered cries. At night, she 
saw people with whom she quarrelled, and who gave her blows; 
in order to defend herself, and prevent their coming in contact 
with her, she never undressed. This lady declared that bad 
smells were spread around her, and that her food was poisoned; 
she then refused nourishment, ate dry bread, and drank only 
water. 

Very often, on questioning her, she would either not reply at 
all, or talk incoherently, without any regard to the questions 
asked. 

The monomaniac form of hallucination may continue to a very 
advanced stage of the disease. Madame M., aged eighty-one, 
has lost her memory ; she no longer recognizes her children ; 
her past and present life is a blank. During the four years that 
she has passed in the establishment, one hallucination has been 
her torment. Her husband, who died six years previously, is 
ever present with her; but he is not above one foot in height; 
he appears to her as a soul. He wanders on the walls, on the 
roof, in the street; he calls to her, and complains of cold, be- 
cause he is naked and hungry. She replies with sighs, shrieks, 
and howlings ; desires to have brandy, soup, and clothes brought. 
Almost incapable of walking, she endeavors to get to the court- 
yard, where he tells her to come. Sometimes he shows himself 
as a head to which wings are attached. We have already spoken 
of this lady in another chapter. 

Dementia often exhibits itself in a maniacal form; and it is 
sometimes very difficult to discover the shades of diiference 
which separate the two states. A person may appear maniacal 
who has already advanced one step into dementia ; another ap- 
pears demented, who, as yet, is only maniacal. As the malady 
progresses, the diagnosis does not long remain doubtful; but the 
statu quo condition may last a considerable time, and the diffi- 
culty is then very great. 

Case LXIII. M. B., a well-known artist, and one who has 
acquired a well-merited celebrity, has for fifteen years been sub- 
ject to a maniacal delirium which has passed into dementia. 
Frequently set at liberty, his excitement becomes decided and 
even dangerous, whenever any great public event occurs. The 
intellectual disorder is then manifested by hallucinations of smell 



156 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

and taste ; he imagines that he is obliged to inhale infectious 
odors ; that some one is trying to injure and poison him. He 
becomes very suspicious, and shuts himself up in his room. He 
goes the rounds with his sabre, searches in the wardrobes, and 
under the beds, and threatens to kill twelve or fifteen hundred 
persons. He also believes that he is followed by strangers, who 
cause all the evils he suffers. 

When tranquil, he speaks of his art, and it is then a real 
pleasure to listen to him, for his conversation, full of interest, 
is interspersed with curious anecdotes. His letters on the sub- 
ject, although very long, exhibit no confusion of ideas. But 
when the paroxysm comes on, which occurs at indefinite periods, 
his conversation is incoherent. He is an elector, he must go 
and vote; he is a proprietor; they have no right to confine him. 
He is imprisoned because he quarrelled with a literary man, 
which he explained to the magistrates. Foreigners did all 
the harm ; they were preferred to the French. He had written 
works which ought to insure the gratitude of the country. He 
then talks of the King of Prussia, and on many other sub- 
jects having no connection with his present state. His memory 
is weakened. During the paroxysm he sees individuals, and 
hears voices that threaten him ; objects are transformed ; he is 
terrified. By degrees these symptoms abate ; he becomes 
rational ; draws, paints, plays the violin, and talks well. For 
eleven years this state has continued. Latterly, he plays all 
night, and dances with the company. His hallucinations con- 
tinue. 

Case LXIY. — Madame Z., aged fifty, deranged for ten years, 
believes herself invested with the functions of inspector-general; 
her discourse is generally unconnected, especially when she 
talks long. This lady carries her head high, speaks senten- 
tiously, and in Italian. Sometimes she gets into a rage, be- 
cause the telegraphs act in a manner tending to degrade her, 
and send her fumigations that she wishes to avoid. She complains 
that she is beaten, which adds to her anger, when fresh attempts 
at violence recall the old ones. By means of acoustics, her 
ears are assailed with filth and insults of all kinds. At times, 
Madame Z. dresses herself in a very absurd style ; her manner 
is theatrical. She is intrusted with the highest functions; exerts 
an active surveillance ; gives in reports of all she observes. If 



HALLUCINATIONS IN DEMENTIA. 157 

she sees anything blameworthy, she gets into a violent passion, 
and abuses and threatens ; her countenance expresses the ex- 
citement which transports her. 

During the ten years that she has been under my charge, her 
maniacal acts are always the same ; and she often explains them 
plausibly. In the middle of the night, and even in the day, 
her voice rings through the house ; in a dogmatic tone she 
addresses discourses to beings with whom she is in the country, 
and speaks with them on the sciences. They are professors and 
learned men who reply to her. 

One of her principal hallucinations is the belief that persons 
get into her chamber through the walls, the windows, and the 
doors, and talk and act obscenely. She insists that jugglers 
make use of physics and chemistry to torture her. She often 
entreats me to save her from the emmenagogues that the jug- 
glers make her take. This lady has also illusions of the sight ; 
figures and objects are transformed, or assume an unnatural 
aspect or color. The insanity has increased, but hallucinations 
and illusions still exist (October, 1851). 

Dubuisson reports, in his work, the case of a demented person 
who, during sixteen years, at the vernal and autumnal equinox, 
and during the summer and winter solstice, shrieked night and 
day, tore his bedclothes, his sheets, and his mattress, because 
he imagined he was covered with serpents and vipers. These 
paroxysms lasted from fifteen to twenty days.* 

In complete or entire dementia, when the memory is almost 
gone, when there remain no passions, no desires, and the patients 
obey their keepers like children, hallucinations are still pro- 
duced. 

Case LXV. — M. C, sixty-three years of age, had always a 
weak intellect, but was often obstinate. His children were 
obliged to leave him. Having reached the last stage of demen- 
tia, no longer recognizing any one, he was brought to my esta- 
blishment, because every night, at bedtime, he was seized with 
an extreme terror at the sight of murderers coming to kill him. 
During the existence of this idea, he called out incessantly to 
the assassin, to the police, for help, and fought as though to 

* Des Vesanies, ou Maladies Mentales, p. 188, Paris, 1816. 



158 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

defend himself. This lasted for several months, and some days 
before his death, the same hallucination came to torment him. 

For ten years we had a lady under our care, with whom it 
was impossible to hold any communication because she fell into 
a rage whenever she was approached, and talked wildly and 
incessantly. Every night she held disputes with persons who 
contradicted and insulted her ; her quarrels were extremely 
violent, and lasted for hours. All the phases of the scene may 
be imagined. 

Senile dementia, which is only a variety of this kind, is also 
sometimes accompanied by hallucinations. We knew an old lady, 
aged eighty-two, who, from time to time, was subject to a very 
singular false impression. This lady, whose chamber looked on 
to a large white wall, told us how agreeably she was occupied in 
seeing several thousand persons coming down the wall to attend 
a fete. These persons wore ball-dresses ; they were men, wo- 
men, and children. She uttered exclamations of joy and sur- 
prise at their number, the variety of their costumes, and the 
rapidity with which they went down to the third story be- 
low. By degrees the promenaders diminished; she only saw a 
few scattered groups ; and at length all disappeared. We have 
since noticed similar cases in very aged women. 

Recapitulation. — Dementia is frequently combined with hal- 
lucinations and illusions. 

The nature of dementia would appear at first sight to render 
this combination less frequent ; but on studying more atten- 
tively this form of derangement, we are convinced that it has 
different degrees of development, amongst which monomania and 
mania play an important part. The duration of these halluci- 
nations may be prolonged for years, because there are varieties 
of dementia that remain stationary for a length of time. 

Hallucinations may be exhibited in dementia, as in other forms 
of derangement, under a continuous, remittent, intermittent, and 
periodical type. 

The existence of hallucinations in complete dementia excites 
no surprise, since the individual so attacked has lived out a 
common life, and we cannot ascertain whether all his recollec- 
tions are extinct. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN DEMENTIA. 159 



SECT. II.— OF HALLUCINATIONS IN DEMENTIA, WITH GENERAL 
PARALYSIS. 

It may appear somewhat singular, at the first glance, that the 
most serious kind of lunacy may be combined with hallucina- 
tions and illusions. In fact, how can we believe that a stut- 
tering man, without memory or sight, with mouth half open, 
hanging lips, and shuffling and unsteady gait, can be awakened 
to interest in anything ? Certainly, the objection is powerful, 
but experience proves that such is the fact. Moreover, that 
which we have advanced relative to the different degrees of 
dementia, may be applied to the derangement of reason in para- 
lysis. As in the first of the forms, there is a monomaniacal, a 
maniacal, and a demential variety. 

We here speak only of paralytic lunacy, and not of that 
disease which was described a few years ago as general progres- 
sive paralysis, ivithout alienation. Cases of this kind are but 
few, for Messrs. Aubanel and Thore have only found eight in 
one hundred and twenty instances, as follows : — 

Of hallucinations of sight ... 4 cases. 

Of hearing 2 « 

Internal hallucinations . . . . 2 " 

M. Calmeil, in his work on Paralysis, gives but few examples. 

M. Bayle does not speak at all of hallucinations in his de- 
scription of different degrees of chronic meningitis. M. Michea 
reports two in fifteen cases. 

It is nevertheless undeniable, that many paralytic, insane, 
and demented persons have hallucinations of sight and hearing. 
According to a modern author, some are also tormented by 
incubes. 

Out of eight cases of paralysis and dementia in our establish- 
ment, four had hallucinations of hearing and sight. 

Case LXVI. Madame , aged sixty-five, is of a literary 

family; and has been celebrated for her wit. Her eyes, and the 
expression of her countenance, still bear witness to the brilliancy 
of her mind. Now, her conversation is incoherent, her voice 
trembling, her memory gone; but amid this wreck of intellect, 
she has still an idea of writing poems. Every morning she tells 



160 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

me, in an agitated voice, that she has received the visit of a 
white angel, who has conversed with her. "During the day," 
she says, "my angel spoke tome; he engaged me to go out, and 
see my daughter. The angel is young, handsome, and fair." It 
is a reminiscence of the past. At times she believes herself at a 
feast, and details all the viands she has tasted. At table, the 
meats are excellent; she inhales the most delicious odors; the 
wines are of the most celebrated vintage. Excepting on the 
subject of her poetry and her works, she wanders incessantly. 

Sometimes the frenzy passes from one object to another; she 
grows enraged at the slightest opposition. Her insanity pre- 
sents one of the phases of mania. 

Case LXVII. — M. N. devoted himself for many years to 
scientific works, more particularly to the natural sciences. His 
researches appear to have led him into skepticism. He turned 
everything into ridicule, and discovered a host of arcana, of 
which he was the first to make a jest. In talking with him, one 
could not but be struck with the confusion of his language. He 
liked to talk of his works, but forgot the names of all the sub- 
stances, although he remembered those of celebrated persons 
whom he had known — a fresh proof, which may be added to a 
thousand others, that it is only in its last gasp that the mind 
relinquishes the recollection of what has powerfully affected it. 
He could not rest satisfied with anything; was very positive; no 
one could dispute with him ; he knew everything. As he broke 
and destroyed all things about him, we were obliged to put the 
strait waistcoat on him. He would lead me aside, entreat me 
to take it off, and in a mysterious manner promise to be calm. 
Scarcely, however, was he free, than he recommenced his mis- 
chief. 

He was a prey to a singular hallucination; he constantly 
desired to mount the wall, because the king and the commissary 
of police waited for him at the top. We were obliged to fasten 
him down in a chair, to prevent him from breaking his limbs. 
This hallucination lasted for six weeks, and did not cease until 
within a few days of his death. 

We will close our observations on general paralysis, by fur- 
nishing the cases of two demented persons who, having reached 
the last stage of the disease, roused from their torpid condition 



HALLUCINATIONS IN DEMENTIA. 161 

and began to utter shrieks and howlings that no effort could 
check. 

Case LXVIII. — M. B., paralytic and insane for four years, 
had apparently lost the power of speech. From time to time, 
he would utter hoarse cries and inarticulate sounds ; then would 
keep silent for fifteen days or a month. At certain periods, he 
would recover his speech and pronounce several sentences, 
which proved him to he under the influence of some frightful 
hallucination. In fact, he saw a shark at his side ready to 
devour him. His efforts to scare and drive away the monster 
were terrible. He uttered yells, which resounded afar off, and 
beat against the partition of his chamber. His features were 
distorted ; his eyes started from their sockets ; he was bathed in 
perspiration. Nothing could pacify him ; we could only remain 
spectators of a strife that painfully affected all who witnessed it. 

This hallucination was followed by very serious results. One 
day, believing that his sister, who was tenderly ministering to 
his wants, was the shark, he rushed upon her with a razor. 
Happily, she escaped the weapon, but a cousin who was present 
at this distressing scene, was so affected by it that she expired 
in five days. 

Lately, another paralytic subject, who could scarcely make 
himself intelligible, commenced shrieking aloud, calling for help 
against a murderer. He then broke all the panes of glass in 
the window, probably to escape by the lightest passage, which 
he took for the door. We came in all haste. He told us that 
assassins had come in, had moved his bed, and wanted to kill 
him. Nothing could soothe him. After this hallucination, he 
refused food and quickly sank. He died in a few days. 

Recapitulation. — Dementia, with general paralysis, may be 
combined with hallucinations. 

Presenting, as simple dementia does, some of the symptoms of 
monomania and mania, the existence of hallucinations is easily 
explained. 

It is more difficult to comprehend how hallucinations can be 
produced when all the faculties are destroyed. 

It is probable that, in this state, some portion of the brain 
remains uninjured ; so that when an influence, unknown to us, 
is felt, the hallucination may occur for a few moments. 
11 



162 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

At the commencement of general paralysis, the mind being 
only slightly affected, numerous and varied hallucinations may 
easily occur. 

SECT. III.— OF HALLUCINATIONS VIEWED IN RELATION TO IMBE- 
CILITY, IDIOTISM, AND CRETINISM. 

It is essential for the production of hallucinations that cer- 
tain faculties, amongst which imagination holds an important 
place, should be brought into play. But when these faculties 
are entirely extinct, as in the last degree of madness, or when 
they have never been developed, as in idiotism and cretinism, 
these errors of the senses cannot take place. 

A difference ought to be recognized in the imbecile whose 
mind is not totally destroyed; who, for example, has memory, 
is teachable, exhibits gratitude, evinces fear, is sometimes re- 
vengeful, &c. It may easily be understood, that where these 
faculties exist, in howsoever limited a degree, hallucinations may 
occur. To us there seems no doubt that many censurable, even 
culpable acts, have been committed by imbeciles who have had 
hallucinations and illusions. Undoubtedly, the imbecile insane 
are credulous, and this disposition of mind makes them docile 
instruments in the hands of adroit rogues ; but an examination 
of their faculties proves that they may be led away by halluci- 
nations. 

Recapitulation. — The imbecile who has the use of several 
faculties, may have hallucinations and illusions. The complete 
absence of mind in idiots and cretins makes the production of 
hallucinations impossible in their case. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OF HALLUCINATIONS IN DELIRIUM TREMENS. 

Approximative statistics of cases of insanity, from the abuse of intoxicating 
drink — The illusions and hallucinations to which inebriates are subject — 
Cases — Nature of the hallucinations — They may be attended with very serious 
results — Delirium tremens includes different diseases — Drunkenness — Its con* 
nection with drunken alienation — Recapitulation. 

The effect of alcoholic liquors upon man is too well known to 
be dwelt upon. We will simply enter into some details concern- 
ing the mental derangement which is frequently the result of 
their use. 

In the asylums for lunatics belonging to the middle classes of 
society, one-tenth, says M. Royer Collard,* become insane from 
excess of alcoholic or vinous drinks. The proportion of men to 
women is as four to one. 

Dr. Bayle attributes to this cause one-third of the mental 
maladies to which he has directed his attention. f 

There is one important observation to be made, which is, that 
in some individuals the taste for drink does not exhibit itself 
until after the appearance of insanity, just as a critical age 
develops in very estimable women an inclination for drink. 

In the houses devoted to insane paupers, this influence is still 
more remarkable. Out of 1679 lunatics, admitted into Bicetre 
from 1^08 to 1813, adds Dr. Ramon, formerly physician of that 
hospital, there were 126 insane from excess of drink. Out of 
264 women in the Salpetriere, the lunacy of 26 only, according 
to M. Esquirol, could be attributed to the abuse of wine. 

* De l'usage et de Tabus des boissons fermentees et distillees (Prize 
Essay); Paris, 1838. 

t Bayle, Traite des Maladies du Cerveau, et de ses Membranes, Paris, 
1826.— Leveille, Folie des Ivrognes, 1830, 1 vol. in 8vo.— Sandras, Mala- 
dies Nerveuses. 



164 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The functional derangement produced in lunatics by excess of 
drinking, assumes diverse forms. We shall only treat here of 
the disturbance of the sensibilities "which are manifested by 
illusions of the senses and hallucinations. The afflicted see 
objects double ; everything reels around them ; they see sha- 
dows and spectres ; hear an uproar of voices, or unusual sounds ; 
they are convinced that their food tastes of poison; they inhale 
fetid odors. 

Roesch applies the term ebrieuse to the hallucinations of deli- 
rium tremens. He says that the sufferer believes his room, his 
bed, his clothes, to be full of flies, birds, mice, rats, or other ani- 
mals, which he uses all means to drive away.* 

M. Marcel, in his excellent pamphlet on this subject observes, 
that the great majority of these hallucinations have the effect of 
producing a painful moral impression. Many of these lunatics 
are convinced that they are pursued ; they see people armed 
with knives and sticks ; they hear threatening voices. Some of 
the persons present are transformed into devils, or assume 
other dreadful shapes. Hallucinations of sight and hearing 
combined are the most common. f 

M. Viardot, author of a translation of Nouvelles Husses, by 
M. Gogol, says that the Zapororogue Cossacks, who use alcoholic 
liquors immoderately, are very subject to delirium tremens. 
They are then assailed by diabolical visions. He cites the case 
of an individual, who, seeing enormous scorpions stretching their 
claws out to seize him, died in convulsions on the third day, 
convinced that he was in their power. J 

These painful hallucinations have been noticed by physicians 
of all nations. We read, in the American Journal of Insanity, 
of animals of different kinds, which the sufferer imagines enter 
his chamber and glide into the bed or crawl on the coverlet, 
making menacing gestures or frightful grimaces. § 

We have noticed the existence of these false sensations in the 
first edition of this book. 

* Ch. Eoesch, Be Tabus des boissons spiritueuses, etc. (Annal. d'Hyg., 
xx. p. 337, et seq.) 

f Marcel, De la Folie causae par Tabus des boissons alcoboliques, these, 
Paris, 1847. 

% Revue des Deux Mondes. 

I Annal. Med.-Psych., Juillet, 1850, p. 466. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN DELIRIUM TREMENS. 165 

Amongst the numerous facts of this kind that are every year 
exhibited in my establishment, and which belong almost exclu- 
sively to the class of wine-venders, I will relate the following : — 

Case LXIX. — M., twenty-seven years of age, short and 
stout, of a lymphatic temperament, had contracted, under the 
influence of his trade, the habit of drinking a considerable 
quantity of brandy. Three days before he was received into 
my house, his parents perceived that he stammered and trembled 
all over. On the day of his entrance he was under great excite- 
ment ; the walls, he thought, were hung with skeletons, phan- 
toms, and devils, who climbed up and then disappeared. At 
times, this phenomenon occurred on a space no larger than a 
sheet of paper. The objects before him were transformed in 
the strangest manner. Thus he brought to his doctor a cup and 
a hat, which he said had taken the forms of extraordinary per- 
sonages. In his frenzy, he saw his wife committing the most 
furious outrages. This illusion exasperated him ; he uttered 
deadly threats, which decided his medical attendant to transfer 
him to my establishment. When I interrogated him, he related, 
in a trembling voice, all the visions that distressed him ; he said 
that his wife denied it, but that it was mere dissimulation on her 
part. He pointed them out to me with his finger, saying: "Do 
you not see them ?" At night, he was constantly stooping 
down to seize every object, no matter of what kind, that came 
out from the floor. Now he uttered exclamations of terror at 
the aspect of frightful figures ; now he made signs to other 
visions to approach, that he might talk with them. I have no- 
ticed elsewhere the frequency of this symptom, which is chiefly 
characterized by figures of animals, reptiles, and insects.* Two 
baths, of eight hours each, with cold water irrigation, cured 
this man, on whom twenty-five drops of opium had not taken 
effect. 

Case LXX. "I was called," says Dr. Alderson, " sometime 
since, to M., who, at that time, kept a wine store. As I 
was in the habit of attending him, and knew him very well, I 
was struck, on my entrance, at the strange expression of his 

* Brierre de Boismont, De l'hydropisie chez les alienes buveurs, et de 
sa guerison par l'usage modere du vin et de l'eau de vie [Gazette des 
Eopitaux, 8 Aout, 1844). 



166 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

countenance. As lie went up stairs with me, I noticed that he 
staggered. On entering the room, he told me how much he 
dreaded being treated as a madman, and sent to the asylum at 
York, whither I had shortly before sent one of his drunken com- 
panions. 'Why do you fear?' said I; 'what is the matter? 
Why do you look so terrified V He sat down, and related the 
history of his malady as follows: ' Eight or ten days ago,' said 
he, ' I had gone into the cellar to draw some liquor for a girl, 
when I noticed a quantity of oyster-shells on the ground, which 
I presumed she had thrown there. I begged her to pick them 
up ; when, believing me to be drunk, she laughed and went out. 
I stooped down in order to remove them, but, to my astonish- 
ment, there were none. I was preparing to leave the cellar, 
when I saw a soldier, with a very forbidding countenance, 
attempt to enter. I asked what he wanted, but, receiving no 
other answer than a menacing look, I sprang up to seize the 
rascal, when, to my great surprise, it proved to be only a phan- 
tom. A cold sweat came over me, and I shuddered from head 
to foot. Having somewhat recovered, I determined to try and 
discover the nature of the being that fled before me into the 
darkness ; but he disappeared, and was replaced by other fan- 
tastic figures, some of which only appeared in the distance. I 
exhausted myself in vain efforts to approach them. Although 
I am very courageous, I own that I never before felt so terrified. 
During the whole night, I was tormented with apparitions of 
living friends, or of those who had long been dead ; I was con- 
tinually getting out of bed to assure myself of the truth or false- 
hood of these visions.' 

" Such a condition was followed by sad consequences. He 
could not distinguish his customers from phantoms, so that his 
conduct began to be talked about. At first, it was attributed to 
drunkenness ; but was at length discovered to proceed from some 
other cause." 

"When I was called in," continued Alderson, "his family 
were convinced that he was mad, although they acknowledged 
him to be perfectly rational on every other subject. 

" Having related his troubles, the patient was much relieved, 
and transported with joy when I told him that I should not send 
him to York, since I could cure him in his own house. Whilst 
I was writing a prescription, he jumped out of bed, and ran to 



HALLUCINATIONS IN DELIRIUM TREMENS. 167 

the door. 'What are you doing?' cried I. He appeared 
ashamed and confused. 

" The details we are about to give will afford a clue to the origin 
of the disease. Before his attack, he had had a quarrel with a 
drunken soldier, who wanted to enter the store at an unseason- 
able hour. In the struggle, the soldier drew his bayonet, and 
struck him a blow on the temple, which divided the temporal 
artery. He lost much blood before the surgeon arrived. He had 
hardly recovered from this wound, when he engaged to accom- 
pany a friend, who had undertaken, for a wager, to walk a cer- 
tain distance in a given time ; he walked forty-two miles in nine- 
hours. Delighted at the success of his friend, he passed the 
whole of the following day in drinking ; but for some time after 
felt so unwell, that he resolved not to repeat it. During the 
week that followed this abstinence, his disease commenced. It 
increased continually for several days, and did not allow him an 
instant of repose. 

" He could not rid himself of these visions day or night, 
although he frequently took long walks for the purpose, and 
went into society. He complained to me of being bruised by 
blows given to him by a carter, who came every night to his bed- 
side, but who disappeared as soon as he attempted to return them. 
He was cured by leeches and active purgatives. The phantoms 
first ceased to appear by day ; once the carter showed himself 
in the interval between sleeping and waking. Since then, he 
has had no more visions, and knows what reliance to place upon 
ghosts."* 

Hallucinations are infinitely various. In fact, they are, as- 
we have already remarked, a reflex of the characters and habits 
of the persons attacked. Sometimes, however, they are the 
result of an association of ideas arising from some fortuitous 
circumstance. 

Hallucinations occasioned by wine may have very disastrous- 
results. M. R. had great domestic afflictions, from which he 
could find no relief but in constant drunkenness. This con- 
tinued indulgence was shortly followed by derangement of intel- 
lect. He one day saw the figure of an extraordinary being, that 
beckoned to him to follow ; he rose precipitately, followed it, 

* Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. vi. p. 288. 



168 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

and fell into the street, having gone through the "window. I 
found him bewildered by his fall; he still thought he saw the 
phantom, and only replied confusedly to my questions. Some 
days of quiet and abstinence restored him to reason. 

Authors, who have written on this disease, have described a 
number of cases of these disorders of the sensibilities. They con- 
ceive, in fact, that from hence may arise an infinite combination 
of hallucinations. This may show itself at the beginning of the 
disease, a circumstance which it is highly important to remark, 
for, if one of our patients could throw himself from a window in 
pursuing a fantastic figure, it is easily understood that another 
could strike a person down whose figure may appear to him to 
be that of a monster, an enemy, etc. 

Dr. Delasiauve, who has published a good work on the Dif- 
ferential Diagnosis of Delirium Tremens,* recognizes these 
hallucinations, but thinks that this fact has been too much 
generalized. According to him, the terror which the greater 
part of the sufferers feel, proceeds from the dangers and menaces 
from which they attempt to escape, and in consequence of which, 
finding no relief, they sink into a real stupor. 

It will doubtless be asked, why we have not combined hallu- 
cinations occasioned by fermented liquors with those which arise 
from poisonous substances? Our reply is this: — 

The delirium of drunkards is a very common malady, which 
shows itself with the train of symptoms of insanity, and of 
which the original cause, the abuse of fermented liquors, may 
be itself the symptom of a mental malady. The hallucinations 
arising from poisonous substances are transient; they are very 
rare in our country, and many of them require study. More- 
over, their action on the animal economy is quite different from 
that of fermented liquors; and their symptoms are not really 
those of insanity. We therefore think that these hallucinations 
ought to be comprised in a special chapter. 

Recapitulation. — The delirium of drunkards is almost always 
combined with hallucinations and illusions, which may exhibit 
themselves under the most singular forms, and give rise to some 
of the disturbances of sight described in the treatises ex professo. 

The hallucinations of delirium tremens merit a special chap- 

* Kevue Medicale et Annal. Medic-psycho., Oct., 1851. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN DELIRIUM TREMENS. 169 

ter, for they are almost always of a distressing character, and 
give rise to a long train of singular, fantastic, reprehensible, and 
dangerous actions. 

We must not lose sight of the fact that hallucinations are not 
exclusively produced by delirium tremens, and that many mental 
affections comprised under that name, but which differ in their 
symptoms, although having the same origin, may also be com- 
bined with hallucinations. 



CHAPTER X. 

OF HALLUCINATIONS IN NERVOUS DISEASES. 

Hallucinations in catalepsy, epilepsy, hysteria, hypochondria, chorea, rage, etc. — 

Recapitulation. 

We have now considered hallucinations in the grand divisions 
of insanity. 

This section is the most important of all, and it might furnish 
materials for volumes; but our examination of it is necessarily 
restricted to the limits appropriated to our subject, and to the 
size of our book. 

Hallucinations are not only exhibited in mental diseases, but 
appear from time to time, and sometimes very frequently, in 
another series of nervous affections, which have some points of 
affinity with insanity. These diseases are catalepsy, epilepsy, 
hysteria, hypochondria, chorea, chlorosis, rage, etc. 

The febrile delirium, observable in lunatic asylums, will serve 
as a natural transition to acute or chronic, inflammatory or other 
diseases, which are combined with hallucinations. This last 
group will only comprise those affections that most frequently 
present this phenomenon, or in which they offer some remarkable 
peculiarities ; otherwise, we should enlarge our list immoderately, 
and without benefit to science. 

1. Of Catalepsy in connection with Hallucinations. — The early 
authors, who have studied catalepsy, have described cases that 
would seem to prove it to be combined with hallucinations. We 
find the following sentence in Frederick Hoffman: "Narrant 
mira gaudia, aut phantasma tragica, visiones divinas consortium 
angel orum, quin et futura praenuntiari videntur ae vatidicos se 
simulant." But, on reading the two cases stated by this author, 
we immediately perceive that they belong to ecstatic catalepsy. 

The difficulty of detecting the existence of hallucinations in 
catalepsy, rests on the alteration of the intellectual faculties in 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NERVOUS DISEASES. 171 

this singular state. They are, however, almost always more or 
less entirely suspended; or, as M. Bourdin expresses it, veiled.* 
In my article on Catalepsy,f I have likewise stated that, during 
the paroxysm, the senses are almost entirely suspended, and the 
mental faculties numbed. Nevertheless, we perceive, by the 
observations of some patients and the perusal of cases published 
by some authors, that there are cataleptics who have dreams or 
visions, which bear relation to the objects which have so power- 
fully affected them. In a case recorded in the Memoirs of the 
Academie Royale des Sciences, catalepsy was caused by suspense 
consequent on an important lawsuit, and, during the fit, the pa- 
tient gave an exact account of the business. Dr. Hamilton, in 
his fragmentary memoirs, % has given the history of a young 
person who heard all that was said around her. 

Experience proves that this malady may precede or succeed 
a fit of hysteria, of monomania, or somnambulism, and unite so 
completely with these affections, as to make it almost impossible, 
in some cases, to distinguish the primary affection from the 
accessory phenomena. Thus, although we admit that halluci- 
nations' are very rare in catalepsy, since the exercise of thought 
is destroyed, suspended, or singularly diminished, we yet think 
that they exist in some cases. 

2. Of Upilej)sy in connection with Hallucinations. — The fre- 
quent union of epilepsy and insanity leads to the belief that 
some epileptics are subject to hallucination. Arete'e was the 
first who noticed this fact.§ In the examinations made at 
Salpetriere, Esquirol found that, out of three hundred epileptic 
patients, more than one-half were insane. The greater number, 
indeed, had dementia ; but some were maniacs and monomaniacs. 
Now, we know that dementia is far from being an obstacle to 
the production of hallucinations. The same facts have been 
reported at Bicetre and Charenton. 

Many of these patients, before the suspension of all sensibility, 
have had the most varied hallucinations; they think they see 
luminous bodies, which they fear will consume them. They see 
black figures that expand, become enormous, and threaten to 

* Bourdin, Traite de Catalepsie, Paris, 1843. 

f Encjclopedie Catholique. $ Revue Britannique. 

I De Caus. et Sign, de Morb. Diut., lib. i. c. 5. 



172 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

envelop them in darkness; they hear noises resembling claps 
of thunder, the rolling of drums, the clang of arms, the tumult 
of combat ; they smell the most offensive odors, and they feel 
blows. All these hallucinations inspire them with the greatest 
terror. Perhaps it is this, adds Esquirol, that imprints on the 
countenance of most epileptics that character of fear or indig- 
nation common to them under the paroxysm. These facts had 
not escaped Hibbert and Paterson, who called special attention 
to the hallucinations observable in epilepsy. 

Dr. Gregory speaks, in his lectures, of an individual subject to 
attacks of epilepsy, in whom the seizure was always preceded by 
the apparition of an old woman in a red cloak, with an ill-natured 
countenance and a hideous figure, who advanced and struck him 
on the head with her cane. He had scarcely received the blow, 
w T hen he fell to the ground in convulsions.* 

Amongst my patients were several in whom the attack was 
preceded by an apparition, and others in whom the hallucination 
followed the fit. 

Case LXXI. M. L. was attacked ten years since with a 
melancholy monomania, in which he believed himself exposed to 
the persecutions of bitter enemies. He frequently heard them 
make impure observations, and could not sleep on account of the 
conversations they held near to him. This patient had been sub- 
ject from infancy to epileptic fits at irregular intervals, preceded 
by a hallucination that came like a flash. In the instant that 
preceded the loss of consciousness, he saw a diabolical figure 
approach him like the shade of a phantasmagoria; he cried out: 
"Here is the devil!" and fell to the ground. 

Sometimes fantastic figures speak to the epileptic, abusing 
him, or commanding him to do something. It is almost certain 
that many crimes committed by these unfortunate beings, and 
for which they have been severely punished, have been the result 
simply of hallucinations of sight and hearing. 

Case LXXII. "Jacques Mounin," says Berne, "was sub- 
ject to epileptic fits, after which he evinced great excitement. 
After one of these attacks, he rushed like a madman into the 
open country, and killed three men in succession. He was fol- 
lowed by the inhabitants, seized, and bound, and, being interro- 

* Paterson, op. cit. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NERVOUS DISEASES. 173 

gated, said he very well recollected having killed three men, 
and especially a relative, whose loss he deeply regretted ; also, 
that, during his epileptic seizures, he saw flames all around him, 
and that the color of blood gave him pleasure." * 

Several of our insane patients have described themselves as 
dazzled by a large red light, that shone like lightning, before 
the fit. In the greater number of cases that we have collected, 
the hallucination took place prior to their fall. M. Billodf has 
given the case of a young man who, two or three days before the 
attack, in a vision, saw and heard his mother and sister, with 
whom he conversed. 

"The paroxysms of epilepsy," says Conolly, "are often pre- 
ceded by the appearance of phantoms and spectres. As a similar 
state of the brain, peculiar to this hallucination, may exist in 
other cases not followed by paroxysms, we can comprehend how 
a belief in supernatural visions may be the result. Amongst 
my patients is a gentleman who, on the point of losing con- 
sciousness, always saw the most beautiful landscapes. 

" Some years ago, I received into my establishment a coun- 
tryman of athletic form, who came to be treated for epileptic 
fits that attacked him every month. He told me that, in one of 
the paroxysms he had before he came to my house, he was in the 
country harvesting ; he seized a scythe, and, driven on by a 
voice, rushed through the fields, cutting right and left at every- 
thing in his path, until, exhausted with fatigue, he lay down 
under a wall and slept. What would have prevented him from 
committing a crime?" 

M. Brachet, who has given a good description of epileptic 
convulsions in children, notices, as the forerunner to the fits, 
the frightful dreams which awaken the children with a start, 
give an expression of terror to their countenances, and make 
them utter screams of fear. 

In the epileptic convulsions that occur towards the close of 
pregnancy, during confinement, and after delivery, hallucina- 
tions and illusions are very frequent. 

* Brierre de Boismont, Observations Medico-legales sur la Monomanie 
Homicide, p. 24, Paris, 1827. 

f Considerations sur la Symptomatologie de PEpilepsie, Annal. Med,- 
Psych., Nov. 1843, p. 384. 



174 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

3. Of Hallucinations in Hysteria. — " When moral disorders," 
says Cabanis, "are excited by nervous affections of the gene- 
rative organs, that is to say, by hysteric affections, they are 
accompanied by extraordinary phenomena, which appeared, in 
times of ignorance, to be the intervention of some supernatural 
being ; catalepsies, ecstasies, and all the paroxysms of excite- 
ment, which are characterized by ideas and an eloquence above 
the education and the habits of the individual, arise most fre- 
quently from spasms in the organs of generation."* 

It is singular to hear Diderot exclaim, "No conditions are 
more closely correlated than ecstasies, visions, prophecies, reve- 
lations, passionate poetry, and liystericism.' n \ 

In fact, there is no nervous state which presents a greater 
variety of phenomena than hysteria. A practitioner, M. Honored 
whose clinicals we have long had the honor to follow, observed 
to us, in pointing out his female ward, "Almost all these 
patients have hysteria." 

In listening to the soliloquies of the hysteric patients, in the 
midst of incoherent phrases drawn forth by spasms, we fre- 
quently hear them address or reply to beings whom they imagine 
they see, or who appear to converse with them, or we hear them 
complain of the fetid air they breathe, or the detestable taste 
they have in their mouths. 

The hallucinations of hysteria may be divided into two cate- 
gories, according to whether they are manifested in a state of 
sanity, or whether they are combined with mental alienation. 

Case LXXIIL Madame C. has, for several years, been 
subject to attacks of hysteria; at their approach, she becomes 
timid, and fearful, until her terrors augment to such a degree 
that she continually calls for help. This exaggerated alarm is 
caused by atrocious-looking figures, which she thinks she sees 
during the paroxysm, and which appear to make grimaces to 
abuse her, and to threaten to beat her. 

Hibbert, in his work on hallucinations, says that when, in 
hysteric females, the excitement has reached a high pitch, re- 
sults are produced analogous to those occasioned by deutoxide 
of azote, to which an extraordinary influence on the blood is 
attributed. 

* Influence des Maladies sur les Idees. f MSmoires, t. i. Paris, 1842. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NERVOUS DISEASES. 175 

This author mentions the case of a woman, reported by Por- 
tius, who was always warned of the approach of her fit, by the 
apparition of herself in the looking-glass. Sauvage asserts that, 
during their paroxysms, patients have seen frightful spectres. 

M. Miche'a says, that hallucinations were very frequent in the 
hysteric epidemic that affected the nuns of Saint Elizabeth at 
Louviers.* 

Hysteria may exist with insanity, and these cases are even 
common; but we must inquire as to which of the diseases hallu- 
cination belongs. Since it is developed at the commencement 
of the paroxysm, or during its progress, and ceases with it, it 
may surely be considered as a complication of hysteria. 

Case LXXIV. Mademoiselle S., forty-six years of age, be- 
lieves that she is the author of all the evils in the world. God 
has deserted her, and abandoned her to Satan. This insanity, 
which was first exhibited in melancholy, is now characterized by 
songs, recitations, and soliloquies, which, with her voice raised to 
a high pitch, she utters with extreme volubility. 

Mademoiselle S. feels conscious of this absurdity, and her 
liability to be taken for a mad woman ; but she obeys an irresisti- 
ble voice ; nothing on earth could prevent her giving utterance 
to her feelings. This state of excitement is succeeded by strong 
hysterics, and she struggles in long-continued and violent con- 
vulsions. The seat of the spasm is in the uterus : when the hand 
is placed on that region, the movements of the patient become 
modified, and she tells of all that is passing in her abdomen. 
During these attacks, the figures of the attendants are trans- 
formed. She sees the devil, and hideous phantoms ; she strongly 
believes she is possessed; utters piercing cries, supplicates to 
be delivered from these apparitions, bursts into shouts of 
laughter, and melts into tears; then, at the close of some hours, 
returns to her natural condition. 

With many insane hysteric women who have come under our 
notice, the hallucinations were of an amorous nature ; others, 
when under the influence of religious impressions, are visited by 
angels or demons, in which case the hallucinations are influenced 
by the laws which usually govern them. 

* Delire, Des Sensations, p, 298, Paris, 1846. 



176 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

M. Macario* presents us with several interesting examples : — 

Hysteria, in mental alienation, is frequently accompanied by 
erotomania and nymphomania. It is probable that education, 
in repressing these instincts, had only rendered them more vivid 
and strong, by reason of their prolonged suppression. 

It is usually in the commencement of hysteria that hallucina- 
tions are presented; they are also observed during the fit when 
the faculties are partially retained ; and they may be exhibited 
at the close of the seizure. Hallucinations of sight and hearing 
are the most common, but all the senses may be affected; and 
this is also the case with illusions. 

4. Of Hallucinations in Hypochondria. — The hypochondriac, 
by his moral condition, truly represents a lens, where everything 
converges, and is necessarily predisposed to hallucinations and 
illusions. Thus incessant study, the fixedness of which nothing 
can disturb, is favorable to their production. It is common for 
the patients to complain of detonations, hissings, musical sounds, 
and extraordinary voices which they hear in the brain. " These 
persons," says M. Dubois d'Amiens, "think that their brain is 
effervescing ; that it has dried up, or withered ; and they say 
tbey are about to lose their sight, their hearing, etc."f 

Many think that a snake or a fish is moving over different 
parts of their bodies. One lady, whose case M. Falret has de- 
scribed in his work, said her skin appeared to be covered with 
scales like those of a carp, but she recognized her mistake on 
touching it. Some complain of a sensation of heat and cold 
simultaneously, or successively, in different parts of their bodies. 

Hallucinations may accompany hypochondria without any real 
insanity; but, says Louyer-Villermay, "when we see the fre- 
quent union of melancholy and mental alienation with hypo- 
chondria, we can readily conceive that a sort of affinity exists 
between these diverse kinds of madness." 

Zimmerman becomes hypochondriac; and this celebrated phy- 

* Paralysie hysterique (Annal. Medico-psych., Janv. 1'844, pp. 68, 72, 

f Histoire philosophique de rHypochondrie et de l'Hysterie, Paris, 
1837, 1 vol. in 8vo. See also the work by M. Brachet on Hypochondria, 
1 vol. 8vo. 1844; that of M. Michen on the same subject; a Treatise on 
Hypochondria and Suicide, by M. Falret; and a Practical Treatise on 
Nervous Diseases, by M. Sandras, 1851, torn. i. p. 514. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NERVOUS DISEASES. 177 

sician, author of two highly esteemed treatises, is incessantly 
complaining of his bad digestion. His work on "Solitude" 
constantly breathes a melancholy strain. The French Revolu- 
tion increases his mournful ideas; soon, he experiences wakeful- 
ness, optical illusions, and apparitions of phantoms during the 
night. With these symptoms are combined derangement of the 
functions of the stomach, tremblings, violent giddiness, espe- 
cially on the use of coffee; syncope after the least exercise; 
vacillation, with a want of confidence, and obstinacy ; a slight 
wandering and confusion in his ideas ; and pusillanimity, which 
is quite at variance with his usual character. 

Among the many phenomena accompanying hypochondria, 
we perceive, in its early stage, an extreme desire for solitude, 
which increases, and, assuming the character of an exclusive 
delirium, excites a constant fear in the patient that an enemy 
will enter and devastate his house.* 

Georget, whose works may always be advantageously con- 
sulted, says that some of these patients finally lose their senses, 
but that this is a rare termination of the affection. Having had 
a longer practice than that celebrated physician, we dissent 
from his opinion ; and think that the link between hypochon- 
driasis and insanity is closer than that physician imagined. 

Case LXXV. M. de L. has been distressed, for twenty years, 
with the notion that he has an acute disease in the stomach and 
bowels, which, however, does not prevent him from eating of 
everything with a good appetite. He also feels, in the left hy- 
pochondriac region a tumor which experienced physicians can- 
not discover. About two years ago, he began to think he was 
surrounded by enemies; that everybody looked askance at him; 
and that grimaces were made at him'. Frequently believing 
that he heard abuse and menaces, he attacked inoffensive per- 
sons, who had not even looked at him. 

M. A. De G., the author of several important works, and 
whose melancholy adventure was published in all the journals, 
believed at first that his digestive organs were diseased; then he 
was persuaded that some persons were seeking to poison him. 

* Louyer Villermay, Traite des Maladies Nerveuses, et en particulier de 
l'Hysterie et de l'Hypochondrie, t. i. p. 420. 

12 



178 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

He saw individuals following him everywhere, taking aim at him, 
seeking to stab him, and endeavoring to enter his chamber. 

Case LXXVI. Madame la Comtesse de M., at a critical 
period of life, imagined she had an enlargement of the matrix. 
Probably a few wrinkles, and some gray hairs, were the founda- 
tion of this unfortunate conception. I say unfortunate, since 
she found a surgeon who encouraged her in her belief. From 
this moment, therefore, the lady, naturally excitable, had no 
rest. Her imaginary disease imposed on her a thousand priva- 
tions ; and her whole conversation was of remedies. After 
passing several months in this perpetual panic, she began to 
complain of a noise in the left side of her head; she at times 
likened it to the puffing of a cigar; at others to the rushing of 
a river. This noise became sometimes so excessive as to agitate 
her extremely. 

M. Itard has described several similar cases.* 
Case LXXYII. M. J., aged thirty years, a German profes- 
sor, had for several years been much troubled by pains in the 
intestines. The most striking symptom was a sort of embarrass- 
ment, a restraint, which he had vainly endeavored to overcome. 
This young man, who had received an education superior to his 
station, was checked by every obstacle that could obstruct the 
road to fortune. Physical and moral suffering was added to the 
derangement of his intellectual faculties ; he was brought to my 
establishment. On his arrival, he told me that his abdominal 
disease was doubtless the cause of the hypochondria by which 
he was often attacked; that it had increased until it had in- 
fluenced his brain, given incoherency to his ideas, and made all 
his actions aimless. His fixed idea was that his friends injured 
him, placed him under magnetic influence, and that finally they 
had introduced a magnetizer into his abdomen. He endeavored 
to explain to me how the magnetizer acted in the inside of his 
body. It was interesting, in listening to him, to follow out the 
train of ideas through which he had successively passed to com- 
pose what now entirely occupied his mind. He held conver- 
sations with the magnetizer, whom he could not persuade to 
depart. 

* Traits des Maladies des Oreilles, 2d edition, revue par M. Bousquet, 
1842, 2 vols. 8vo. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NERVOUS DISEASES. 179 

Two blisters on the legs, nutritious food, and the judicious oc- 
cupation of his mind in the analysis of important works, wrought 
a rapid change, and we soon restored him cured, to his friends. 

5. Of Hallucinations in Chorea. — Hallucination is now con- 
sidered very rare in chorea. Bouteille only mentions one case.* 
Dr. Se'e, it is said, described several examples in his work, to 
which a prize was awarded by the Academie de Medecine. But 
it was not thus in the epidemic chorea of the Middle Ages. 
" During their dance," says M. Hecker, "the afflicted perceived 
apparitions ; they neither saw nor heard what was passing around 
them; and their imaginations, presented spirits whose names 
they pronounced, or rather shouted. Several of them after- 
wards insisted that they were plunged into streams of blood, 
which made them jump so high. Others, in their ecstasy, per- 
ceived the heavens open, with the Virgin and the Saviour 
enthroned, according to the different views which the belief of 
the age impressed on their imaginations, "f 

M. Nivet has described two cases of false perception of the 
sight in individuals attacked with the dry colic. t M. Tanque- 
rel's work§ contains several examples. 

M. Valleix|| cites facts relative to buzzings, hissings, and cold 
sensations. 

6. Rage. — " The delirium regarded as one of the symptoms of 
rage," says Trolliet, "and which belongs less to that disease 
than to frenzy, has occasioned more than one mistake. When 
it is exhibited, it is in an advanced stage of the affection." 

That author, however, cites several examples of hallucinations 
amongst the patients whom he attended in the hospital at Lyons. 
One of the two expired in giving violent blows to his bed, believ- 
ing he was fighting an enraged wolf. Another, in struggling- 
with a wild beast, died as. he overcame him.^f 

* Traits de la Danse de Saint Guy, p. 145, 1816. 

f Hecker, Memoire sur la Choree de Moyen age, traduit de 1' Allemand 
par M. Ferdinand Dubois (Annal. d'Hyg. et de Medecine legale, 1834, t. xii. 
p. 314). — A. Brierre de Boismont, De l'influence de la civilisation surle de- 
veloppement de la Folie (Annal. d } Hygiene, id. t. xxi. p. 183). — Sandras, 
Maladies Nerveuses, t. i. p. 165. 

% M6m. sur la colique saturnine, Gaz. Med., No. 2, p. 32, 1837. 

$ Le Traite des Maladies de Plomb, by M. Tanquerel Desplanques-. 

|| Traite des Nevralgies, Paris, 1851, p. 58, 91, 532. 

i Trolliet, Nouveau Traite de la Rage, p. 201, 205, and 206, Paris, 1820. 



180 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Felix Plater speaks of a woman who was washing linen under 
a bridge, and, being left by her companions, was seized with 
fear. She saw a light gleam from the arch of the bridge; the 
torrent increase, overflow, and rush impetuously along. On her 
return home, she showed every symptom of suffocation.* 

Recapitulation. — Hallucinations are very rare in catalepsy, 
on account of the suspension of the intellectual faculties. Some 
patients, however, have dreams and visions, and can give an ac- 
count of their state. 

The frequent occurrence of epilepsy with insanity, explains 
why hallucinations are more common in this malady than in the 
preceding. 

Hallucinations in epilepsy being generally of a sad or alarm- 
ing character, it is possible, to a certain extent, to explain by 
this influence the nature of the fear, or the indignation usu- 
ally exhibited by these sufferers during the fit; and probably 
the reprehensible actions they frequently commit, may be ex- 
plained in the same way. 

Hysteria is often combined with hallucinations. According 
to Cabanis, catalepsies, ecstasies, and all the paroxysms of ex- 
citement which are characterized by ideas, and by eloquence 
superior to the education and habits of the individual, have their 
source most frequently in the organs of generation. 

The hallucinations of hysterical persons, may occur in a state 
of sanity, or they may be exhibited in mania, monomania, and 
dementia. 

When hallucinations exist with insane hysteric patients, it is 
necessary to ascertain to which of these diseases they are related. 

Hallucinations in hysteria are generally observed at the com- 
mencement of the affection; they may likewise be manifested 
during the fit when the understanding is not destroyed, or at the 
close of the crisis. 

The fixedness of ideas in hypochondria is favorable to the 
production of hallucinations. As in other nervous affections, 
hallucinations of sight and hearing are most common. 

Hallucinations may be exhibited in hypochondria, where reason 
does not seem to be impaired; but, most generally, they are 
combined with insanity. 

* Op. cit., p. 90. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NERVOUS DISEASES. 181 

Hallucinations are now rare in chorea; they were frequent in 
epidemic chorea. 

The combinations of catalepsy, epilepsy, hysteria, and hypo- 
chondria with monomania and different forms of madness, their 
transition from one form to the other, and their reunion, by esta- 
blishing numerous connections between these various affections, 
give a reason why hallucinations are so often observable. 

Chlorosis is combined with hallucinations in a certain number 
of cases. This state of the system is explained by the excited 
condition of the nervous system at the time of the affection. 

Hallucinations sometimes occur in rage, in dry colic, and in 
several nervous affections. 



CHAPTER XI. 

OF HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 

Section I. — Hallucinations in nightmare — Its analogy to madness — Varieties of 
nightmare — Its coexistence with reason and with insanity. 

Section II. — Hallucinations in dreams — Analogy between dreams and hallucina- 
tions — Two divisions : physiological dreams, and pathological dreams — Psycho- 
logical condition of dreams — Difference between hallucinations in dreams and 
those of waking hours — Hypnagogical hallucinations — Physiological studies 
— Coincidence of dreams with events — Presentiments — Facts in support there- 
of — Persistence of the intelligent principle in dreams — Pathological dreams — 
Influence of dominant ideas on dreams — Importance of dreams in the insane 
— Nocturnal epidemic hallucinations — Periodical hallucinations — They may 
become permanent — Recapitulation. 

SECT. I.— OF HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE. 

Whosoever has carefully studied nervous diseases, can have 
no doubt as to the analogy of nightmare and madness; the 
curious facts that we have witnessed, leave no uncertainty on 
the subject. A distinguished writer believed that he flew in the 
air. We have seen him, under the influence of this hallucina- 
tion, uttering inarticulate sounds — his hair bristling, his counte- 
nance full of terror. At such times he would exclaim: "How 
surprising! I fly like the wind! I pass over mountains and pre- 
cipices!" For several seconds after awaking, he still imagined 
himself floating in the air. 

One species of nightmare we have often noticed. The subject 
of it feels that he is skimming over the ground with extreme 
rapidity, pursued or threatened by dangers from which he is 
conscious of an utter inability to escape. He awakes with a 
vague sense of uneasiness, and experiences the fatigue resulting 
from a long walk. 

In nervous persons, nightmare is occasioned by painful emo- 
tions. A young and delicate lady, very excitable, was ac- 
customed to avoid listening to the recital of tales of terror, 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 183 

knowing from experience that disturbed slumber would result 
from the indulgence. A departure from her usual precaution 
would be followed by nightmare, with its attendant horrors. 
Towards midnight she would become restless ; sighs and broken 
sentences, accompanied with extreme agitation, would follow, 
and her body become bathed in perspiration. On being awakened 
by her husband, she would utter fearful cries, fancying she 
was surrounded by robbers and assassins ready to destroy her. 

In infancy and adolescence, the nightmare makes its ap- 
proaches in the following manner : The individual attacked by 
it imagines himself on the edge of the bed or of a precipice, 
and about to fall. He feels that nothing can save him from the 
danger ; and he looks with an eye of terror on the gulf below ; 
an irresistible force drives him on, and he awakes with the shock. 
Sometimes the images that affect children are of so gay a nature 
as to produce immoderate laughter. 

At other times, the patient imagines that robbers are break- 
ing into his house ; he hears them coming up the stairs ; he 
tries to fly ; an irresistible power fixes him to the spot. He 
is exhausted with fruitless efforts ; he feels as though he 
were transformed into a block of stone, incapable of motion ; 
or, if he is standing, as though his feet had taken root in the 
soil. The individual who is a prey to this hallucination, ex- 
hibits extreme agitation ; he wishes to cry out, to call for help, 
but his voice fails him; he cannot utter a sound. The immi- 
nence of the danger, even the mortal blow, hastens the crisis ; he 
awakes, filled with terror, bathed in perspiration, with a quick- 
ened pulse, and a sensation of oppression and uneasiness, which 
ceases, however, in a few seconds. 

Among the numerous varieties of nightmare, we must not pass 
over that which consists in believing one's self condemned to 
death. "We see all the preparations for execution ; we mount 
the scaffold ; the head falls ; and yet we are still conscious, as 
if nothing had happened. A peculiarity that we have nowhere 
seen mentioned is, that a person who has suffered from an attack 
of nightmare may be tormented with it several clays in succes- 
sion, at the same hour and under a similar form. A lady felt 
uneasy in her sleep ; soon, there appeared an enemy, who pur- 
sued her in order to kill her. She awoke with a start ; on the 
next day the same vision returned, and continued to return for 
several days in succession. As the hour of rest approached, 



184 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

she was oppressed by an indefinable terror ; her sleep was 
troubled, and she yielded to it, despite of herself. By degrees, 
this painful sensation diminished and she became calm. 

A young man told us that, for several successive nights, per- 
sons placed themselves at the foot of his bed and attempted to 
draw off the sheets; a struggle occurred; they succeeded, and 
as soon as he was entirely uncovered, the fit subsided. 

In other cases, the hallucinations of nightmare, however pain- 
ful, exhibit no external signs of their presence. A physician 
who is accustomed to reading in his bed, has been told by his 
wife, on her awaking, that she had had a long and frightful 
nightmare ; he had not perceived in her the slightest agitation. 

It may sometimes happen that persons subject to this in- 
disposition are conscious of the non-reality of what is passing; 
and reason with themselves as though they were awake, in order 
to prove that these sensations are false. A young lady saw the 
wall opposite open, and a death's head come out and fix itself 
on to a skeleton, which advanced towards her. Convinced that 
this apparition was an illusion, she talked aloud to herself to 
gain courage; but the uneasiness always ended in awaking her. 
Some authors have described a variety of nightmare, in which 
it appears that a cat, or some other animal, or a monster, places 
itself on the stomach. Great oppression is felt in that region; 
every effort is made to get rid of this imaginary being, whose 
weight stifles, whilst it freezes the blood with horror.* 

In the different cases here mentioned, the hallucinations in 
nightmare have ceased on waking, but it may happen that they 
will continue in a waking state, when they are taken for realities. 
The nightmare is then combined with mental alienation. 

Case LXXVIII. In a convent in Auvergne, an apothecary 
was sleeping with several persons; being attacked with night- 
mare, he charged his companions with throwing themselves on 
him, and attempting to strangle him. They all denied the 
assertion, telling him that he had passed the night without 
sleeping, and in a state of high excitement. In order to con- 
vince him of the fact, they prevailed on him to sleep alone in a 
room carefully closed; having previously given him a good sup- 
per, and even made him partake of food of a flatulent nature. 

* Encyclopedic Catholique, liv. li. p. 48. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 185 

The paroxysm returned; but, on this occasion, he swore that it 
was the work of a demon, whose face and figure he perfectly 
described. 

Case LXXIX. An old soldier, aged fifty-two, afflicted with 
hemorrhoids, very weak-minded, and subject to fits of anger, 
became so much disturbed at having no children, that he lost his 
senses. After a month of treatment, during which paroxysms 
of anger would frequently occur, he was sent to Paris, where 
various means were employed to renew the hemorrhoidal flux. 
The treatment was very successful; but one night, during the 
summer, the patient started from a profound sleep, shouted out, 
dragged his heavy bed against the casement, barricaded the 
door, and called for help. Attendants arriving with a light, he 
was found to be very much alarmed ; his countenance pale, his 
eye fixed, and his body covered with perspiration; by degrees, 
he was calmed down and induced to return to bed. 

On the following day, he explained the disturbances of the 
night, by saying, that four men had thrown themselves on him 
when he was asleep, and had attempted to kill him; that, feeling 
himself almost stifled, he succeeded in throwing them off, and, 
seeing them escape through the window, he had carried his bed 
there, to prevent their returning by that opening. 

Here the nightmare seized an individual already suffering 
under another disease ; nevertheless, it presented all its distinc- 
tive characteristics. The preceding combination is, however, 
frequent, and Esquirol, who mentioned the case to the author, 
assured him that he had frequently remarked it in insane persons 
under his care.* 

We may notice, amongst other forms of nightmare, that in 
which the subject of it imagines that he sees a monstrous horse, 
a deformed man, an old woman, an evil genius, and even apes, 
who jump on to the breast and sit or lie there. The vision of a 
cat is common with children. 

Nightmare is sometimes a precursory or concomitant symptom 
of epilepsy, hypochondria, mania, hysteria, and somnambulism. 
Sauvages has published a case which he borrowed from Fortis. 

Case LXXX. "A man lately came to me saying: ' Sir, if 
you do not help me, I am lost ; I am sinking into marasmus ; 

* Dubosquet, Dissertation sur le Cauchemar, p. 8, 1815. 



186 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

see how pale and thin I am. I, who was always so stout and 
good-looking, am nothing but skin and bone.' 'What ails you?' 
I inquired ; 'to what cause do you attribute your malady?' 'I 
will tell you,' he replied ; ' and you will certainly be astonished. 
Almost every night, a woman, whose form is not unknown to me, 
throws herself on my breast, and presses me so violently, that I 
can scarcely breathe ; when I endeavor to cry out, she stifles 
me, and the more I try to raise my voice, the more powerless 
do I become. Moreover, I can neither use my arms to defend 
myself, nor my feet to fly ; she holds me bound and strangled.' 

"'This is nothing surprising,' I remarked, immediately recog- 
nizing nightmare ; 'it is nothing but a phantom, an effect of the 
imagination.' 'A phantom!' cried he; 'an effect of the ima- 
gination ! I tell you what I have seen with my eyes and touched 
with my hands. Frequently, when I am awake, she springs 
upon me ; I endeavor to repulse her in vain ; fear, anxiety, and 
her superior strength, throw me into a state of helplessness that 
makes me incapable of defence. I have run hither and thither, 
constantly seeking relief from my miserable state; but, do what 
I will, neither by prayers nor menaces can I persuade her to 
cease tormenting me.' — I attempted in vain to persuade this man 
of the absurdity of his ideas ; however, after two or three con- 
versations, he began to be convinced of the nature of his malady, 
and to entertain hopes of a cure.* 

The hallucinations of nightmare have sometimes occurred in 
an epidemic form. 

Case LXXXL " The first battalion of the regiment of Latour 
d'Auvergne, in which I was first surgeon," says Dr. Parent, 
" when in garrison at Palmi, in Calabria, received orders to 
leave the place at midnight, and hasten to Tropea, in order to 
oppose the disembarkation of a flotilla. It was in the month of 
June ; the troops had forty miles to march ; they departed at 
midnight, and did not reach their destination until seven o'clock 
at night, having rested but a short time, and suffered consider- 
ably from the heat of the sun. On arriving, the soldiers found 
their mess and lodging prepared for them. 

" As the battalion had come from the farthest point and was 
the last to arrive, the worst barrack was assigned to it ; and 

* Jason, De Morbis Cerebri, etc., cap. xxyi., et Schcenkius, Obs. 253. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 187 

eight hundred men were placed in a spot, which ordinarily would 
not hold more than half the number. They were huddled to- 
gether on the floor, on straw, without coverings, and consequently 
could not undress. It was an old deserted abbey. The in- 
habitants informed us that the battalion could not rest in that 
place, because it was nightly haunted by ghosts, and that seve- 
ral regiments had already made the unfortunate attempt. We 
laughed at their credulity ; but what was our surprise, at mid- 
night, to hear the most alarming cries proceeding from every 
part of the barrack, and to see all the soldiers rush out in 
terror ! I interrogated them as to the cause of their fear, and 
they replied that the devil inhabited the abbey ; that he had 
entered through a hole in the door, under the form of a huge 
dog with long black hair, who rushed upon them, flew over their 
breasts with the rapidity of lightning, and disappeared by the 
door opposite to that at which he had entered. 

" We laughed at their fears, and endeavored to prove that 
this phenomenon arose from causes quite simple and natural, 
and was only the effect of imagination. Neither by persuasion 
nor threats could we prevail on them to return to the barrack ; 
they passed the remainder of the night dispersed on the sea- 
shore, and in various parts of the town. The next day, I again 
interrogated the sub-officers and the oldest soldiers. They 
assured me that they were above all kinds of fear, that they 
believed neither in spirits nor ghosts, yet they appeared quite 
persuaded that the scene of the barrack was not an effect of 
imagination, but a reality. They insisted that they were not 
asleep when the dog came in, but that they had seen him, and 
were wellnigh smothered when he jumped on their breasts. 

"We remained all day at Tropea, and as the town was filled 
with troops, were obliged to return to the same lodging, but we 
could persuade the soldiers to lie down only by promising to 
pass the night with them. Accordingly, at half-past eleven, the 
commander of the battalion and myself entered; the other 
officers had, out of curiosity, dispersed themselves about the 
different rooms. We did not expect that the scene of the pre- 
ceding evening would be renewed ; the soldiers, encouraged by 
the presence of their officers, who watched, had gone to sleep, 
when, towards one in the morning, and in every room at the 
same instant, the cries were renewed, and the men who had seen 



188 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

the dog leap on their breasts, fearful of being smothered, rushed 
from the barrack, never to re-enter it. We were up, quite 
awake, and on the watch to see what would happen, and, as may 
be supposed, we saw nothing. 

" The enemy's fleet having dispersed, we returned the next 
day to Palmi. Since this event, we have traversed the kingdom 
of Naples in every way and at all seasons ; our soldiers have fre- 
quently been packed in a similar manner, but we have never had 
a recurrence of this phenomenon."* 

The forced march which these soldiers had been obliged to 
make during a very warm day, had, probably, by fatiguing the 
organs of respiration, weakened them, and predisposed them to 
the nightmare (incubus, ephialtes). Doubtless, also, the exciting 
cause was the constrained position in which they were obliged 
to remain with their clothes on, as well as the rarefaction of the 
air ; and, perhaps, the result was partially due to the influence 
of some noxious gas. 

SECT. II.— HALLUCINATIONS IN DREAMS. 

The analogies which exist between hallucinations in dreams 
and in a waking condition, have induced writers who look on 
hallucination as a pathological phenomenon, to place the two in 
the same category. An English writer who maintains this doc- 
trine, says that, in both cases, the horses draw the chariot with- 
out a guide, with this difference, that the coachman is drunk in 
insanity, and asleep in dreams. f Here, in fact, lies the difference. 

More recently, MM. Moreau and Al. Maury, have main- 
tained a similar opinion. If this be admitted, the result would 
be that none would escape insanity, since those whom it would 
spare during the day would be attacked in the night. The 
absolutism of this proposition is its best refutation. The dream- 
ing state, in an immense majority of cases, is a purely physio- 
logical condition; it is merely a continuation of the action of 
the intelligent principle : and to establish the truth of this pro- 
position, it would be only necessary to bring forward any of the 
plans and actions which are conceived and executed during 

* Grand Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales, t. xxxiv. art. Incube; 
case communicated by Dr. Parent. 
f The Antiquary, vol. i. p. 189. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 189 

sleep. We may, therefore, conveniently classify dreams into 
two divisions, according as they are physiological or pathological. 

The conditions of sleep necessarily modify nocturnal halluci- 
nations. In fact, in dreams, man is no longer a volitional being ; 
his senses cease to perform their functions; identity is lost; he 
confounds time and space; the strangest persons and events 
cause no astonishment; his attention is almost suspended; his 
imagination is unbounded, his memory surprising. All these 
psychological states are found in the hallucinations of dreams, 
and establish their difference from waking hallucinations. 

Voltaire dreamt the first canto of his Henriade differently from 
the plan which he had adopted in writing it. He was struck 
with the singularity: "In my dream," says he, "I said what I 
should hardly have said awake; I therefore thought and re- 
flected involuntarily. I possessed no freedom of will, and yet I 
combined ideas with shrewdness, and even with genius." 

The hallucinations of dreams are frequently exhibited in the 
intermediate state between sleeping and waking. M. Al. 
Maury gives them the name of hypnagogique (aywyoj, that 
which brings on, and trfvoj, sleep).* It is with some reason that 
Purkinge and Grutheisen called them the elements of dreams. 
Cerebral congestion appears favorable to their production; but 
the generalization of this fact would be contrary to experience, 
for thousands of persons dream without having hypnagogical 
hallucinations, headaches, or congestive symptoms. 

The object which is perceived in a dream may be the faithful 
representation, or almost the identical object itself which is per- 
ceived in an hallucination, as the object of an hallucination may 
be the exact reproduction of the object of a dream. 

Abercrombie, whose work on the Intellectual Faculties has 
acquired an extraordinary reputation in England, and justly 
merits a translation into our language, is of opinion that dreams 
and hallucinations are closely related to each other. In support 
of this doctrine, he quotes the following fact : "A distinguished 
physician, harassed with fatigue, and worn out with anxiety in 
consequence of the illness of one of his children, slept in his 
chair, where he dreamed that he saw a gigantic baboon. He 
awoke much agitated, arose and went towards a table that was 
in the middle of the room. He was perfectly awake, and re- 

* Ann. Med. Psych.; t ii. p. 26, 



190 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

cognized the objects around him. At the end of the room, 
against the wall, he distinctly saw the baboon making the same 
grimaces as in his dream. This apparition lasted for half a 
minute."* 

Sir Walter Scott says that the analogy between dreams and 
illusions is striking, as is shown in the following facts : " Thus, 
a dreamer hears a noise not sufficiently loud to awaken him en- 
tirely; at the same time something accidentally touches him. 
These impressions instantly form a part of his dreams, and adapt 
themselves to the tenor of the ideas that occupy his mind, what- 
ever they may be. Nothing is more remarkable than the rapidity 
with which the imagination furnishes a complete explanation of 
this interruption to sleep, according to the manner in which ideas 
are presented by the dream, even without requiring a moment's 
respite for this operation. For example, if a duel is the subject 
of the dream, the noise that is really heard becomes the dis- 
charge of the pistols of the combatants. If an orator, in his 
dream, is making a speech, the noise becomes the plaudits of 
his supposed auditory. If the dreamer is transported in his 
dreams to the midst of ruins, the noise appears that of the fall 
of some portion of the walls. 

"In a word, an explanatory system is adopted, in which the 
rapidity of thought is so great that, if we suppose the noise 
heard to be the first efforts of some one to awaken the sleeper, 
the explanation, although requiring a certain train of deductions, 
is usually finished and complete before a second effort has per- 
fectly awakened the sleeper. There exists in the succession of 
ideas during sleep, an intuition so rapid that it recalls the vision 
in which the prophet Mohammed saw all the wonders of heaven 
and hell, although the water contained in the jar, which was up- 
set when his ecstasy commenced, was not completely emptied 
when he recovered the use of his ordinary faculties." 

Hallucinations in dreams are sometimes the result of associa- 
tion of ideas, or reminiscences. Amongst the curious cases of 
this nature, those that we are about to relate have great inte- 
rest, and prove that dreams give rise to the most singular com- 
binations, and the strangest facts. 

* Abercrombie, Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers and the 
Investigation of Truth. London, 1841. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 191 

Case LXXXII. "A friend of mine," says Abercrombie, 
"employed as cashier in one of the principal banking-houses in 
Glasgow, was at his desk, when an individual entered, requiring 
the payment of six pounds sterling. Several persons were there 
awaiting their turn; but he was so impatient, so noisy, and, above 
all, stuttered so insupportably, that one of the clerks begged the 
cashier to pay him, in order to be rid of him. The cashier 
assented with an impatient gesture, and without entering the 
sum on the books. At the close of the year, in eight or nine 
months afterwards, the books would not balance; there was an 
error of six pounds. My friend passed several days and nights 
vainly endeavoring to find the deficit ; overcome with fatigue, he 
returned home and went to bed, where he dreamed he was at his 
desk, that the stutterer came in, and presently all the details of 
the affair were correctly re-enacted. He awoke, his mind fully 
occupied by his dream, and with the hope that he was about to 
discover what he had vainly sought. On examining the books, he 
found that the sum had not been entered in the day-book, and 
that it corresponded exactly with the error."* 

Case LXXXIII. M. R. de Bowland, land-owner in the Val- 
ley of Gala, was prosecuted for a considerable sum of money, 
being the accumulated arrears of a tithe, due, it was said, to a 
noble family. M. R. was entirely convinced that his father, 
according to a peculiar custom in Scottish law, had purchased 
the tithes of the incumbent, and that consequently the demand 
was unjust. But after minute researches in the title-deeds in 
the public acts, and very long inquiry of those who had had 
business transactions with his father, he failed in finding any 
proof in his favor. The fatal term was on the point of ex- 
piring, and he was preparing his departure for Edinburgh, in 
order to arrange the matter in the most advantageous manner 
possible. He went to bed in this state of mind ; scarcely was 
he asleep when he had the following dream : His father, who 
had been dead for many years, appeared, and inquired what it 
was that so troubled his mind. In dreams, apparitions do not 
excite any surprise. M. R. told him the cause, adding that the 
payment of so considerable a sum of money was the more dis- 
agreeable to him, inasmuch as he knew it was not due, although 

* Abercrombie, op. eit., p. 280. 



192 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

he could not bring anything to prove his assertion. "You are 
right, my son," replied the shadow; "I have paid these tithes 
for which you are prosecuted. The papers relating to these 
transactions are in the hands of M., attorney, who has retired 
from business and lives at Inveresk, near Edinburgh ; I applied 
to him in this case, although he never before transacted my 
business. It is possible that M. has forgotten this circumstance, 
which occurred so long ago ; but you can recall it to him by 
saying that, when I went to settle his account, a difficulty arose 
about the value of a Portugal gold-piece, and that we agreed to 
drink out the difference at a tavern." 

M. R. awoke in the morning, his mind dwelling upon his 
dream. He thought it advisable to turn out of his road and go 
to Inveresk instead of direct on to Edinburgh. Having reached 
the place, he found the person of whom his father had spoken ; 
he was a very aged man. Without saying a word of his dream, 
M. R. inquired whether he recollected transacting any business 
for his late father. The old gentleman had no recollection of 
it, but the circumstance of the gold-piece brought it to his 
memory ; he sought for, and found the papers ; so that M. R. 
returned to Edinburgh with the necessary documents to defend 
his suit, which he was on the point of losing.* 

Undoubtedly, M. R. had formerly heard the circumstance 
mentioned by his father, but it had long been effaced from his 
memory. It is remarkable that the fact should have recurred 
to his mind after so fatiguing a research. There are authentic 
dreams which communicate events passing at the moment, or 
shortly after. A Protestant minister having gone to Edinburgh 
from a neighboring village, stopped at an inn. He was scarcely 
asleep, when he dreamt that his house was on fire, and one of 
his children in the midst of the flames. Awaking up instantly, 
he hastily quitted the inn to return home. Arriving in sight of 
his house, he found it in flames. He rushed in in time to save 
one of his children, who had been abandoned in the midst of 
the alarm and confusion consequent on such an event. f 

This fact may be explained naturally, without having recourse 
to the marvellous. It is possible that the minister had a servant 
who was careless of fire ; this was sufficient to inspire him with 

* Abercrombie, op. tit., p. 288. * Ib^., p. 291. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 193 

a fear of having his house burned. To this may be added the 
fact that his absence would increase the neglect of his servant, 
that there was to be a fete in the neighborhood, and that his 
servant w r ould probably be intoxicated. These circumstances, 
strongly acting upon an excited imagination, would of them- 
selves be sufficient to impress him with the idea that he beheld 
his house in flames, which a simple coincidence converted into 
a sad reality. 

Case LXXXIV. We read, in a work by Ferriar, an anecdote 
borrowed from Ben Jonson, who had extracted it from a work 
by Drummond.* This author relates that when King James 
came to England, at the time of the plague, he went, accom- 
panied by Old Cambden, into the country, to visit Sir Robert 
Colton. There he dreamed that his eldest son, yet a child, who 
was in London, had a bloody cross on his forehead, as though 
he had been wounded by a sword. Alarmed at this apparition, 
he sought to allay his fears by prayer, and in the morning re- 
lated the occurrence of the night to Sir Cambden, who assured 
the monarch that it was only a dream, and begged him not 
to be disturbed. The same day the king received a letter, 
announcing the death of his son by the plague. When the 
child appeared to his father, he had the shape and proportions 
of a grown man.f 

Case LXXXV. Antiquity has bequeathed to us a famous 
dream, which has since found place in many works. Two friends 
arrived at Megara, and lodged in different places. One of the 
two was scarcely asleep, when he dreamed that his companion 
announced to him, with a melancholy air, that his host had 
formed a project to assassinate him, and entreated him to come 
as quickly as possible to his succor. Upon this he awoke, but, 
convinced that it was only a dream, he went to sleep again. A 
second time his friend appeared, and conjured him to hurry, as 
the murderers were about to enter. 

Much disturbed, he was amazed at the recurrence of his dream, 
and prepared to go to his friend ; but reason and fatigue gained 
the mastery, and he returned to bed. His friend then appeared 
for the third time, pale, bleeding, disfigured. " Wretch," said he, 

* Drummond's Works, p. 224. 

f Ferriar, An Essay on Apparitions, p. 58. 

13 



194 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

"you did not come at my entreaty ! It is now over ; nevertheless, 
revenge me. At daybreak, you will meet at the city gate a cart- 
load of dung; stop it, and have it unloaded; you will find my 
body concealed in the centre ; inter me honorably, and pursue 
my murderers." 

Such tenacity, such consistent details, allowed of no hesita- 
tion; the friend arose and repaired to the gate indicated, found 
the cart, stopped the driver, who was disconcerted, and, on 
searching, discovered the body of his friend.* 

Admitting the truth of the account, and presuming that time 
has not amplified or embellished it, it is easily explained by na- 
tural causes. Was not the separation of the two friends, in a 
strange city, after the fatigues of travelling, sufficient to awaken 
mournful presentiments in the mind of one of them, who, in the 
silence of the night, was touched with the fear of assassination ? 
This idea once indulged, imagination would do the rest. As to 
the episode of the cart, which seems difficult of interpretation, 
it is probable that he had seen it in the courtyard. The prin- 
ciple of association of ideas was an element of the dream. 

Cicero, Plutarch, and other ancient authors have preserved 
the following anecdote: "Simonides, having met with the dead 
body, on the highway, of a man who was a stranger to him, had 
it interred. As he was about to embark, he dreamed that the 
man whom he had buried, appeared to him, and informed him 
that, if he persisted in embarking on his voyage, he would perish. 
This warning induced him to alter his mind, and it appeared 
subsequently that the vessel was wrecked."* 

"The opinion," says an illustrious writer, "that truth is some- 
times presented to us during sleep, prevails among all nations. 
The greatest men of antiquity had faith in it, among others 
Alexander, Cesar, the Scipios, the two Catos, and Brutus, none 
of whom were weak-mindecl men. The Old and New Testaments 
furnish us with numerous examples of dreams that have been 
realized. For myself I need nothing beyond my own experi- 
ence, and I have more than once found that dreams may be 
warnings, giving us some information interesting to ourselves 

* Cicero, De Divin. lib. i. \ xxvii. p. 77. 

f Cicero, see Valerius Maximus, liv. i. ch. i.; Plutarch, The Oracles of 
Pythius, p. 154; Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, liv. viii. ch. x. p. 562; 
and Gauthier, Histoire de Somnambulism, 2 vols, in 8vo. 1842. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 195 

alone, and that it is not possible to combat or defend with rea- 
sonings things that surpass human reason."* 

The famous Bossuet, in his funeral oration on Anne of Gon- 
zages, Princess Palatine, deduces his whole plan of conversion 
from a mysterious dream which she had. 

"It was," said he, "an admirable dream, such as God sends 
by his ministering angels, in which the images are so distinct 
and clear that they appear quite celestial. She thought that, 
walkins: alone in a forest, she met with a blind man in a little 
hut. She approached, and inquired whether he was born blind, 
or had become so by accident. He replied that he. was born 
blind. 'You do not then know,' said she, 'what is light, which 
is so beautiful and agreeable; nor the sun, which has so much 
brilliancy and beauty?' 'I have never,' replied he, 'enjoyed 
the sight of that beautiful object, nor can I form any idea of it; 
but I do not the less believe it to be of marvellous splendor.' 
The blind man then seemed to change both his voice and counte- 
nance, and, assuming an air of authority, said: 'My example 
should teach you that wonderful things, which escape our sight, 
are no less true nor desirable because we are unable to compre- 
hend them.'"t 

The following are the reflections of Le Maistre de Sacy on 
dreams: "The pagans, and men in general," said he, "have 
often made chimerical observations on dreams, full of supersti- 
tion and vanity. It has, nevertheless, pleased God, as it ap- 
pears in Holy Writ, to give very important counsel at times to 
saints, during sleep. Saint Augustine reports that Saint Monica, 
his mother, comprehended, by certain pleasing sensations, the 
revelations which it pleased God to make to her during sleep, 
and which her imagination represented to her during her dreams 
of the night. "{ 

Presentiments. — The study of dreams leads us to speak of pre- 
sentiments. The farther we advance in the consideration of the 
nervous system, the more we are compelled to admit, as M. Max 
(Simon) has well said, "that if statistics are true when applied 
to size and quantity, they are no longer so when relating to life 

* Bernardin St. Pierre. Paul et Virginie. 

f Chefs-d'oeuvre de Bossuet, Lefebvre's edition, Paris, 1829, p. 440. 

% Le Maistre de Sacy, Obs. on the 24th verse of Leviticus, t. iii. p. 738. 



196 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

and strength. Can truth, virtue, justice, health, sensibility, etc., 
be computed ? No — a thousand times no; at least, not in such 
a manner as to identify them with matter.''* 

Sensibility is, in fact, a key-board, of which it is impossible 
to seize and express all the tones, producing, as it does, the most 
astonishing and unexpected effects. I read lately of a young 
girl brought up in the country, at the foot of the mountains, who 
had the faculty of distinguishing, amidst the confusion of noises 
all around her, other sounds inaudible to all besides. It was now 
a hollow rumbling that she heard echoing between the summits 
of the Pyrenees, and the acuteness of her hearing was verified 
by a storm which broke with fury during the night on the val- 
ley. Then she would suddenly hear the measured tread of a 
horse afar off ; and the people were surprised to see, some hours 
afterwards, a traveller arrive seeking hospitality, thus bearing 
witness that she had not been deceived by the illusion of a sense 
excited to so astonishing a degree, f 

The same phenomenon may be noticed with respect to the 
other senses ; thus, the delicacy of the sense of smell is some- 
times so great, that persons can detect substances placed at a 
distance at which others are unable to discern them. 

Some have denied atmospheric influence on certain organiza- 
tions. Facts, however, demonstrate that there are natures so 
impressible that they discern, long before others, the changes 
about to take place in the air. 

In the moral world, the field of observation is no less curious. 
All who have powerfully loved, know that there is a supernatu- 
ral vision in passion, which causes the woman loved or hated 
to be recognized by signs imperceptible to ordinary faculties ; 
she is not seen, but we say, "that is she." 

With presentiments are associated antipathies and sympathies. 
That individuals have experienced shuddering sensations at the 
approach of an enemy, or of an unknown danger, is established 
by incontrovertible evidence. Some years since we had the 
opportunity of seeing a lady who had this instinctive feeling 
the instant she came into close contact with a stranger. The 

* L'opinion Heine du Monde. Union Medicale, 2 Aottt, 1851. 
f Souvenirs d'une Aveugle nee, recueilles et ecrits par elle-m§me; pub- 
lies par M. Dufau, Directeur des Aveugles, p. 45, Paris, 1851. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 197 

impression she received was always justified by the result. We 
wished to magnetize this lady, in order to study so singular a 
power, but she evinced so much uneasiness at the operation, that 
it was impossible to test it. 

Much more might be said on presentiments, but we will not 
enter into any ample details on the subject. Cold and calm 
minds reject, but sensitive natures accept them. In the greater 
number of cases, they are not realized ; in such presentiments 
as are justified by the events which follow, they are but a remi- 
niscence, or a simple coincidence; all this we readily admit. It 
is no less true, however, that an unexpected occurrence, a strong 
preoccupation, a lively uneasiness, a sudden change of habit, or 
any kind of fear, arouse instantly in the mind presentiments 
which it would often be wrong to reject with systematic incre- 
dulity. 

This explanation does not seem to us inconsistent with sound 
sense, and in order to give to skepticism the largest possible 
range, we will quote a letter, inserted in the MercurS G-alanU 
of January, 1690: — 

Case LXXXVI. " The best proof, my friend, that I can give 
you of the vanity of dreams, is that I live after the apparition 
which I had on the 22d of September, 1679. — On that morning 
I awoke at five o'clock, but slept again directly. I soon dreamed 
that I was in my bed, and that the covering was withdrawn (an 
accidental circumstance, but true). I saw one of my relations, 
who had been dead some years, enter my room; she who was 
formerly so lively, now looked very sad. She sat down on the 
foot of my bed, and looked compassionately on me. As in my 
dream I knew she was dead, I judged by her distressed look 
that she was about to announce to me some bad news, perhaps 
death. Indifferent to that event, I said: 'Well, I must then 
die!' — 'It is true.' — 'When?' — 'To-day.' — I own that the time 
seemed short, but without any fear, I questioned her anew : 
' How ?' — She murmured some words that I could not catch, and 
I awoke. 

"The importance of so peculiar a dream caused me to ex- 
amine attentively my situation. I remarked that I was lying 
on the right side, my body straight out and my hands on my 
stomach. — I arose to write down my dream, lest I should forget 
it, and finding that it contained all the circumstances peculiar 



198 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

to divine and mysterious visions, I was no sooner dressed than 
I went to tell my mother-in-law, that if serious dreams were in- 
fallible warnings, in twenty-four hours she would cease to have 
a son-in-law. I then related to her what had happened ; I also 
repeated it to some of my friends, but without feeling the least 
alarm or changing my habits, yielding myself to the will of 
Providence. 

" Perhaps, had I been weak enough to believe in this vision, 
I should really have died, and my fate would have resembled 
that of the men spoken of by the Greek historian Procopius ; 
I should have lost my life as a punishment for my belief in 
dreams, a superstition forbidden by God." 

Presentiments, then, may be explained in a number of cases 
by natural causes; but may we not, without being taxed with a 
leaning towards the marvellous, affirm that there are events that 
seem to depart from common laws, or that at least depend on 
connections, hardly understood, between moral and physical 
laws, on over-excitability of the nervous system, or which are con- 
nected with the phenomena of magnetism and somnambulism ? 

Case LXXXVII. Mademoiselle E. was endowed with excel- 
lent judgment and was religious without bigotry. She lived, 
before her marriage, in the house of her uncle, a noted phy- 
sician, and member of the Institute. She was thus separated 
from her mother, who was seized, in the country, with a severe 
illness. One night, this young person dreamed that she saw her 
mother, pale, altered, and about to breathe her last. She was 
bitterly expressing her grief that she was not surrounded by her 
children, one of whom, a curate from one of the parishes in 
Paris, had emigrated to Spain, whilst the other was in Paris. 
She soon heard herself called by her baptismal name ; in her 
dream she saw the persons who surrounded her mother, imagin- 
ing that she called her granddaughter, who bore the same 
name, seek for this girl in the neighbouring square; a sign from 
the sick woman gave them to understand that it was not her 
granddaughter, but her daughter, who was in Paris, that she de- 
sired to see. Her mother's countenance expressed all the grief 
that she felt in her absence ; suddenly her features fell, and were 
covered with the paleness of death; she fell lifeless on her bed. 

The next day, Mademoiselle R. appeared very sad. To D., 
who inquired the cause of her grief, she gave the details of the 
trouble that oppressed her. D., finding her so disturbed, pressed 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 199 

her to his heart, and confessed that it was but too true, that her 
mother had just died ; but entered into no further explanations. 

Some months afterwards, Mademoiselle R., profiting by her 
uncle's absence to arrange his papers, found a letter, which he 
had thrust into a corner. What was her surprise on reading all 
the particulars of her dream, which D. had passed over in silence, 
being unwilling to excite too strong an emotion in a mind already 
so vividly impressed ! 

This account was given to us by the person herself, in whose 
veracity we place the utmost confidence. We must, doubtless, 
here exercise a prudent reserve, and the explanation of the 
dream given by Abercrombie (p. 230) may strictly be used 
here ; but we frankly acknowledge that such explanations are 
far from satisfying us, and that this subject, to which we have 
given deep attention, affects some of the profoundest mysteries 
of our being. Were we to give the names of all the known 
characters holding a high position in science, with correct judg- 
ment and extensive knowledge, who have had these warnings 
and presentiments, we should find ample matter for reflection. 

In support of these remarks, we will give the following anec- 
dote, recorded by Dr. Sigmond, who had it from the widow of 
M. Colmache, private secretary of M. de Talleyrand: — 

Case LXXXYIII. One day, in presence of the old minister, 
the conversation was directed to those instantaneous warnings 
which might be considered as communications from the invisible 
world with man; some one observed that it would be difficult to find 
any celebrated man, who, either in his own person or that of an 
intimate friend, could not attest some supernatural event of his 
life. The prince remarked: "I can never forget that I was 
once gifted, for a moment, with an extraordinary and inexplicable 
prescience, which was the means of saving my life. Without 
that sudden and mysterious inspiration, I should not be here to 
recount these curious details. I was intimately connected with 
one of my countrymen, M. B. We had always lived on the best 
terms, and in those stormy times, something more than friend- 
ship was needed to unite persons, when the expression of friend- 
ship required almost a divine courage. I had no cause to doubt 
his affection. On the contrary, he had, on several occasions, 
given me the most devoted proofs of his attachment to my per- 
son and interests. We had together quitted France to take 



200 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

refuge in New York, and had hitherto lived in perfect harmony. 
Wishing to increase our little capital, I had freighted a ship, 
half shares with him, to try our fortune in the Indies. We were 
ready for our departure, but waited for a favorable wind with the 
greatest impatience. This state of uncertainty appeared to sour 
poor B. to a most extraordinary degree. Incapable of remaining 
quiet, he roamed the city with a feverish activity, which, for the 
moment, excited my surprise, for he was always remarkable 
for his calmness and placidity. One day he entered the room, 
evidently under great excitement, although he used great efforts 
to restrain himself. I was writing letters to Europe. Leaning 
over my shoulder, he said, with a forced gayety, 'Why do you 
lose time in writing these letters ? They will never reach their 
destination. Come with me, and let us make the round of the 
battery. The wind may become favorable; perhaps we are 
nearer to our departure than we think !' The day was magni- 
ficent, although the wind was high; I allowed myself to be per- 
suaded. B., as I afterwards recollected, showed extraordinary 
alacrity in closing my desk, arranging my papers, and offering 
my hat and cane, which I attributed to the need of incessant ac- 
tivity with which he had appeared overwhelmed ever since our 
forced departure. We threaded the well-peopled streets, and 
reached the battery. He had offered me his arm, and hurried 
on as if he were in haste to reach it. When we were on the 
grand esplanade, B. hastened still more, until we reached the 
edge. He spoke loudly and rapidly, and admired, in energetic 
terms, the beauties of the scene. Suddenly, he stopped in the 
midst of his incoherent talk. I had disengaged my arm from 
his, and stood firmly before him. I fixed my eye upon him. 
He moved aside, as if intimidated and ashamed. 'B.,' cried I, 
'your intention is to kill me; you mean to throw me from this 
height into the sea! Deny it, monster, if you dare!' The insane 
man looked at me intently with his haggard eyes for a moment; 
but I was careful not to remove my looks from him, and his eyes 
fell. He muttered some incoherent words, and endeavored to 
pass me, but I spread my arms and prevented him. Casting a 
wild look around, he threw himself on my neck, and burst into 
tears. 'It is true, it is true, my friend! the thought has haunted 
me day and night like an infernal flame. It was for that I 
brought you here ; see, you are not a foot from the precipice ! 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 201 

another instant, the deed would have been done!' The demon 
had abandoned him; his eyes were void of expression; a white 
foam covered his parched lips ; the crisis had passed. I con- 
ducted him home. Some days of rest, bleeding, and dieting 
entirely cured him, and, what is the most singular circumstance 
of all, we never referred to the occurrence.'' 

The prince was persuaded that, on that day, his destiny 
would have been decided, and he never spoke on the subject 
without the greatest emotion. 

This kind of momentary excitement, which never recurs, but 
leaves an ineffaceable impression on the imagination, is, says 
M. Sigmond, what is called fantasia, and in France, pressenti- 
ment. Some curious examples are recorded in the Annales 
Medico-psyc7wlogiques, 2d serie, t. ii. p. 315-317, translated 
from the Psychological Journal of M. Forbes Winslow. In the 
Souvenirs de Mme. de Crequi, we read the following case : — 

Case LXXXIX. — The Prince de Radzwil had adopted an 
orphan niece. He inhabited a chateau in Galicia, in which was 
a very large room which separated the apartments of the prince 
from those occupied by the children, so that, in order to com- 
municate, it was necessary either to pass through this room or 
go through the court-yard. 

The little Agnes, five or six years old, uttered piercing 
shrieks whenever she was taken through the apartment. She 
pointed, with an expression of terror, to an enormous picture 
that hung over the door, representing the Cumsean Sibyl. 
Many attempts were made to vanquish this repugnance, which 
was attributed to childish obstinacy; but the attempts led to 
such serious consequences, that the point was yielded, and for 
ten or twelve years the young girl preferred, during all weathers, 
traversing the vast court-yard, or the gardens, to passing 
through that door which gave her such painful impressions. 

Having arrived at marriageable age, the young countess was 
introduced at the chateau. During the evening, the company, 
desiring some merry game, repaired to the large parlor, where, 
moreover, the wedding-ball was to take place. Animated by 
the cheerful scenes around her, Agnes did not hesitate to follow 
the guests. Scarcely had she reached the portal than she drew 
back, and acknowledged her fear. According to custom, she 
had led the way, and her bridegroom, her friends, and uncle^ 



202 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

laughing at her childishness, closed the door on her. But the 
poor girl resisted, and the door being violently shaken, the pic- 
ture that hung over it fell down. An angle of the enormous 
mass crushed her s^ull, and killed her on the spot.* 

There may, therefore, he manifested in certain cases a dispo- 
sition in the nervous system by which the individual so affected 
may have the sensation of an unexpected event, or some danger, 
or unusual occurrence. All travellers who have threaded the 
forests of the New World, and noticed the wild natives, speak 
of the extraordinary movements of animals, and of the conduct 
of the savages on the approach of some great catastrophe, 
whilst Europeans are yet inquiring the cause of these excite- 
ments. Without interfering with the action of mind upon 
matter, we are firmly convinced that imponderable agents, elec- 
tricity in particular, have connections, yet unknown, with the 
organization of man. 

Many of the cases that we have already mentioned prove that 
the operations of mind, which occur in dreams, consist principally 
in past remembrances and associations following each other, ac- 
cording to a law of succession over which the will has no power; 
in general, the impressions are weakened, and escape the empire 
of that faculty. But things do not always pass thus, and the 
work of thought may be continued in that state. These are 
psychical dreams, the intuitive dreams of M. Macario. M. Bail- 
larger, who has paid attention to this subject, says that, ordi- 
narily, in dreams, hallucinations are psychical, or leave no 
sensorial impression. They also relate more especially to the 
sense of hearing. We cannot adopt the same exclusive idea as 
to this sense. 

Case XC. Examples of persons who have composed in dreams, 
are not of uncommon occurrence. One of the most remarkable 
cases of this nature, is that to which we owe the famous sonata 
by Tartini, called the Devil's Sonata. This celebrated composer 
was sleeping, after having vainly endeavored to finish a sonata ; 
his preoccupation continued during sleep ; he dreamed that he 
renewed his task, and was in despair at composing with so little 
warmth and spirit, when the devil suddenly appeared and offered 

* J. Charpignon, Physiologie Medecine et Metaphysique du Magnetism, 
Paris, 1848, p. 352. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 203 

to finish his sonata, if he would sell his soul to him. Entirely 
under the influence of this hallucination, he accepted the proposi- 
tion, when he heard the devil execute the desired sonata on the 
violin with an inexpressible charm of execution. He then awoke, 
in a transport of delight, hastened to his desk, and wrote down 
the conclusion to which he had just listened. This is probably 
the most remarkable case of this species of hallucination that 
ever occurred.* 

Condorcet says, that he was frequently obliged to give up his 
difficult calculations, in order to rest. Several times, in his 
dreams, the work was done for him, and the corollaries correctly 
presented to his mind. 

Franklin related to Cabanis that political combinations, which 
had often embarrassed him during the day, were frequently 
made clear to him in dreams. 

Hermas was asleep, when, it is said, a voice dictated to him 
the book, which he called the Pasteur, Some persons assert 
that the Divina Qommedia was the inspiration of a dream. 

Galen owed his vocation of physician to a dream, in which 
Apollo appeared to him on two different occasions, and desired 
him in future to devote himself entirely to medicine. This 
celebrated physician dwelt with much complacency on this 
event. 

It is equally certain that some dreams take so strong a hold 
on the mind that, on awaking, evidence is needed to prove that 
they are only creations of the imagination. I have known 
dreams, very circumstantial, produced on several successive 
nights. "I remember," says M. Maury, in his Memoir (p. 31), 
"having dreamed eight times in one month of a certain person, 
whose identity, during that period, remained unchanged, but 
whom I did not know, and who, probably, only existed in my 
own imagination. And what is strange, he frequently continued 
actions in a dream that had been commenced in a former one." 

It often happens that real conversations are maintained in a 
dream. Who has not had his mind occupied, and even fatigued 
during sleep, by some discussion, the advantage of which he 
has not always retained? It would seem as though two distinct 
individuals held different opinions, one of whom came off vie- 

* Moreau, de la Sarte, Melanges de Literature, 



204 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

torious, and yet these seemingly two individuals were one and 
the same person. 

Saint Augustine relates the following fact : — 

Case XCI. A learned man, who was deeply engaged in read- 
ing Plato, said that one night, in his own house, and before 
going to sleep, he saw a philosopher, whom he knew intimately, 
come to him, and expound some Platonic propositions — a thing 
which he had always hitherto refused to do. On the following 
day, he was asked why he explained that in a strange house 
which he refused to do in his own. "I did not do so," replied 
the philosopher, "but I dreamed that I did." 

"Thus," adds Saint Augustine, "the one sees and hears, when 
perfectly awake, by the force of imagination, what the other 
acted in a dream." 

"For ourselves," he adds, "had it been indifferently related 
to us by indifferent people, we should have scorned to place any 
faith in it; but we know that he who related the fact is inca- 
pable of imposition."* 

The hallucinations of dreams are almost always effaced on 
waking, or, if their impression continues, they do not exert any 
sensible influence on the conduct; but it is not so when they are 
the forerunners of a sickness, a mental alienation, or when they 
are manifested in the sleep of the insane. They then present 
an extreme intensity, a very powerful tenacity, and remain 
deeply engraven on the memory. 

Pathological dreams have been noticed by all observers, and 
there is no doubt that they might afford useful indications. 
Galen speaks of a sick person who dreamed that he had a 
stone leg; and says that, sometime afterwards, that leg was 
paralyzed. 

The learned Conrad Gessner dreamed one night that he was 
bitten in the left breast by a serpent, and a deep and severe 
lesion was soon manifested in that very spot; it was, in fact, a 
carbuncle, that terminated fatally at the end of five days. 

Nervous diseases, and especially mental alienation, are most 
frequently preceded by whimsical and extraordinary dreams. 

Odier, of Geneva, was consulted, in 1778, by a lady of Ly- 
ons, who, the night before the derangement of mind occurred, 

* St. Augustine, quoted from Dieu, liv. xviii. ch. xviii. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 205 

dreamed that her mother-in-law approached her with a poniard, 
in order to kill her. This strong impression, increasing in in- 
tensity during the following day, became hypochondria, and 
finally assumed all the characteristics of real insanity. 

In cases where the mind is disposed to mysticism, or to great 
preoccupation, we witness the same results. 

Case XCII. "In 1610," says Van Helmont, "being much 
fatigued with deep thinking, during which I had endeavored to 
acquire some knowledge of my soul, I slept. I was soon raised 
above the fetters of reason; and it appeared to me that I was 
in a dark room ; on the left-hand side I saw a table, and on it 
a bottle containing a liquid, which thus addressed me : ' Dost 
thou wish for honors and riches V I was stupefied at hear- 
ing these words. I paced up and down, endeavoring to under- 
stand what this could mean. On the right hand appeared a slit 
in the wall through which shone a light, the brightness of which 
made me forget the voice and the liquid, and changed the cur- 
rent of my thoughts, for I contemplated things surpassing the 
power of speech. This light lasted but an instant. In despair, 
I returned to the bottle, which I carried away with me. I wished 
to taste the liquid it contained. With great exertion, I uncorked 
it, but experienced a sensation of horror, and awoke. Still, my de- 
sire to comprehend the nature of the soul continued. This desire 
lasted for twenty-three years, that is to say, until 1633, when I 
had a vision, during which my own soul was exhibited to my 
astonished sight. It was a perfectly homogeneous light, com- 
posed of a spiritual substance, crystalline, and brilliant. It was 
shut up like a pea in its shell, and I heard a voice saying to me: 
'Here is what thou sawest through the chink in the wall!' It is 
in the soul that that vision operated; he, who sees his own soul 
with his earthly eyes, shall become blind."* 

According to M. Calmeil, when dreams exercised a universal 
empire over the mind, and the world was plunged in ignorance, 
the greater number of votaries who went into the temples of Isis, 
Esculapius, and Serapis, to implore aid, as well as many sectari- 
ans, and those whom religion had not enlightened, obeyed the 
hallucinations of sleep. 

* Van Helmont, Ortus Medicinae Imago mentis, etc., vol. i. quarto, 
p. 2G9, Amsterodami, 1643. 



206 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

In tlie times of sorcerers, the magistrates asserted that the 
bewitched had not quitted their prisons, notwithstanding they 
declared they had just arrived from the witches' sabbath, and 
ended by believing that the soul went there alone, or that the 
devil fascinated their eyes, and assumed the shape of the persons 
accused. 

In the first ages of the church, only a few select persons were 
instructed. The common people, who could neither read nor 
write, were only struck with the material view of Christianity. 
They, therefore, adhered to its forms, and accepted it in its literal 
sense. This was the era of dreams, which commanded the faith 
of many Platonists. It is not then surprising that individuals 
existed, who, impressed by a dream, ended by believing in its 
reality, and persuaded others that these visions had, independ- 
ently of their fancy, a real cause. Without doubt, many of the 
histories related in the Golden Legend had no other source. In 
fact, it is impossible to attribute a more rational origin to the 
singular narrations this book contains. 

Case XCIII. The following details were communicated by a 
minister worthy of belief to the Editors of the Magasin Psy- 
chologique. The lady, to whom they relate, reasoned well on 
every subject but that of her visions. We prefer quoting her 
own words : " When I was four years old, and playing like 
other children of my age, I had placed the Bible under my 
feet, in order more conveniently to dress my doll, when I heard 
a voice whisper in my ear: 'Put that Bible in its place.' As I 
did not obey, thinking I was mistaken, the same order was re- 
peated. At seven years old, my sister and myself were fright- 
ened, by the sight, in the room, of a large, clear flame, in the 
midst of which we saw a child about six years of age. Our cries 
attracted our parents, who scolded us for our unfounded fears ; 
but the event w r as engraven on our memories. 

"In 1770, my husband and myself quitted Strasbourg on ac- 
count of the dearness of provisions. During the voyage, the 
Lord appeared to me in a dream, and talked with me for half 
an hour. In the following year, after severe domestic troubles, 
I saw one morning, on waking, a man about sixty years of age, 
of celestial countenance, dressed in a robe of blue. His face 
was as clear as the purest crystal. He looked with tenderness 
on me, and said: 'Persevere, persevere, persevere!' I was igno- 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 207 

rant to what it alluded, when a young person, by his side, as 
beautiful as an angel, said to me: 'Persevere in prayer, in faith, 
in works.' 

"While they were talking to me, a light shone into the cham- 
ber, and then disappeared. At the same moment, it seemed to 
me that they were dragging me about by the hair; the pain, how- 
ever, was endurable. The light reappeared, and the pain ceased ; 
when darkness again succeeded, I thought they were pulling off 
my flesh with pincers. After several alternations of darkness 
and violent pains, I saw the devil come out from behind the bed, 
with his back towards me. All that I could distinguish was his 
arm and his tail about two inches thick. I had no time to exa- 
mine furtner, for the angel shoved him out with his elbow. 

" The light again appearing, the two persons contemplated me 
with a melancholy air. The young man then said : 'Lord, that 
is enough ;' which he repeated three times. 1 looked attentively 
at him, and saw two large white wings on his shoulders, by 
which I knew him to be an angel. Darkness reappearing, peace 
again came to my heart; I arose, it was about five o'clock in 
the morning. The year following, I was again favored with the 
appearance of the Lord. 

" In 1773, having returned to my husband, my life became 
so unhappy that I thought only of death. One morning, on 
waking, I looked up to heaven, and saw a sea-dog sailing in 
the air. When he had passed, the clouds descended towards 
me, and my eyes contemplated the most varied objects. The 
house of God was in the midst, surrounded with a clear blue cloud, 
and resplendent with colors unknown upon the earth. In every 
color were thousands of men, whose robes were tinted with the 
same hue ; all their faces were turned towards the habitation of 
the Most High. — A charming woman dressed in dazzling clothes, 
with a crown on her head, came out. She was accompanied by 
three angels, one on the right, the other on the left, and another 
stood behind her; they pointed to a crown, that reflected the 
most brilliant colors. 

" The heavens closed, and opened again ; but the woman and 
the angels had disappeared. Our Lord then came with a long 
train of attendants, and descended in his glory. They all 
smiled on me; they were robed in white, and surrounded by a 
halo. When near enough for me to touch his feet, I was seized 



208 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

with fear, and awoke.* The greater number of these visions 
occurred in sleep, or at the moment of waking." 

The recollection of dreams may be so entirely effaced, as to 
drive from the mind the sense of having slept. Probably some 
of the stories of second sight are only dreams of this nature. 
It is thus that Abercrombie explains the case of Ferriar, which 
we have already mentioned, and which Hibbert has criticized. 
The reasons which the former of the three physicians has ad- 
vanced, appear to us very forcible and probable. 

Sleep with monomaniacs has always been a source of import- 
ant indications. Esquirol, convinced of this, has often passed 
the night in listening to them, and, more than once, his patience 
has been rewarded by the patient exhibiting, in his sleep, the 
cause of his delirium. 

Case XCIV. A foreign lady, aged forty, was several years 
ago brought to our establishment. All the information that we 
could gain relative to her, was limited to the fact that for twenty 
years she had been subject to intermittent attacks of insanity ; 
but we could learn nothing of the circumstances that had pro- 
duced them. One morning, another person suffering under 
hysteric monomania entered my room, and said : "I want to tell 
you something! My neighbor is the celebrated Louisa. All 
night she has been talking with a person of whom she implored 
pardon for having caused him to be taken before the tribunal, 
or else heaping abuse on him; her conversation was mingled 
with the words poniard, assassin, deserted child, hospital, etc. 
I questioned her on her awaking, but failed to gain any light 
on the subject." 

In order to understand this history, we must relate that, one 
year before, a merchant had brought his wife to our establish- 
ment to have her treated for a mental affection. The lady, who 
was very proud, was attacked with a disputatious and wicked 
monomania, and had such a hatred of her husband, that she had 
made several attempts on his life. After passing some time in 
my house, she confided to the other boarders that her husband 
was a wretch who had shamefully ill treated her. " I could de- 
stroy him, if I chose," said she; "I need but relate his infamous 

* Alexander Crichton, An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Men- 
tal Derangement, p. 45, London, 1798. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 209 

conduct towards a young person, whom, in a fit of jealousy, and 
perhaps to rid himself of, he stabbed, twenty years since. Al- 
though he was saved then by the devotedness of his victim, who 
declared to the magistrate that she had attempted her own life, 
he had the baseness to desert her, with her child. The poor 
creature was in despair ; had she been removed into an insane 
hospital, she would probably have died." 

The Louise that we tell of was the heroine of one of those 
domestic dramas, much more fruitful in events than any that 
are represented in the theatre. 

Leuret, in his Fragmens Psycliologiques, has remarked that 
there are some deranged persons who reason, during the day, 
according to the ideas and perceptions of the night. They are 
very capable of appreciating justly what they see during their 
waking hours, and, provided they do not mingle in their con- 
versation recollections of their dreams, they are perfectly sane. 

The coincidence which sometimes exists between dreams and 
insanity has been sufficiently pointed out. Here is a case in 
support of this opinion : A maniac whom Dr. Gregory attended, 
and who was completely cured, had, in a week after his recovery, 
dreams, in which he was annoyed with the same hurried thoughts 
and violent passions which he had during his madness. 

Nocturnal hallucinations have sometimes exhibited themselves 
in an epidemic form. We have spoken of Hungarians, who saw 
in their dreams the shades of their relatives recently interred 
come to them, and felt that they sucked their blood. 

There are some hallucinations that commence in sleep, and, 
being reproduced during several consecutive nights, are finally 
accepted as realities. The widow Schoul heard a voice for 
several nights, which said to her: "Kill your daughter!" At 
first she resisted, and drove away the thought on awaking; but 
the idea soon became fixed ; it no longer disappeared with her 
sleep, and, after some days, the unhappy woman destroyed her 
child. 

Recapitulation. — The nightmare, presenting a strong ana- 
logy to madness, it is not surprising that it is combined with 
hallucinations. 

The hallucinations of nightmare are observable in childhood. 
They are also noticed at different stages of life. 
14 



210 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Hallucinations have often been observed in nightmare under 
an intermittent form. 

In nightmare, as in madness, it sometimes happens that per- 
sons are conscious that the phenomena they experience are not 
real. 

The hallucinations produced by nightmare usually cease on 
waking; but they may be continued during waking hours, and 
be ta£en for realities. 

The hallucinations of nightmare are frequently observed in 
insanity. 

The hallucinations of nightmare serve as a natural transition 
to those of sleep, which only differ from waking hallucinations 
by their intensity and by certain psychological conditions. In- 
deed, it was long ago remarked that an hallucinated person was 
only a waking dreamer. 

During sleep the operations of the mind are no longer sub- 
jected to the control of the will, and all ideas that are then 
formed, are received as so many realities. 

The hallucinations of dreams may be traced to bygone remi- 
niscences, or the association of ideas. 

Many authentic facts seem to prove that the hallucinations of 
dreams may communicate the knowledge of an event that is 
passing at a given time; in this case it is probable, however, 
that it is but a simple coincidence, or a reminiscence. 

Presentiments are often naturally explained; but there are 
cases in which they may be attributed to unknown physical or 
moral influences, or to the real phenomena of somnambulism or 
magnetism. 

If impressions are generally weakened in dreams, there are 
cases which prove that the operations of the mind may take 
place, as in a waking state, and even be exercised with remark- 
able precision, rapidity, and power. 

In general, the hallucinations of dreams cease on waking; or, 
if they still retain a certain energy, they have no influence on 
the conduct. In insanity, on the contrary, they exhibit an ex- 
treme intensity, and great fixedness of character, and remain 
deeply engraven on the memory. 

Popular belief and religious opinions have concurred in im- 
parting great influence to the hallucinations of sleep. It is, 
therefore, not surprising that some persons, extremely impressed 



HALLUCINATIONS IN NIGHTMARE AND DREAMS. 211 

by their dreams, have succeeded in imparting their opinions to 
the mass of the people. It is also possible that in this case, the 
recollection of nocturnal hallucinations has been entirely lost, 
and the mind has accepted as reality that which was, in fact, 
but a dream. 

Some authors think that the cases of second sight are only 
hallucinations of sleep. 

Dreams in neuroses and insanity may furnish many valuable 
indications of the malady. 

Many insane persons reason during the day in conformity 
with the ideas and perceptions of the night. 

The disorders that have occurred during mental alienation 
may be reproduced during sleep, after a cure has been eifected. 

Nocturnal hallucinations have sometimes exhibited themselves 
in an epidemic form. 

Hallucinations, after being repeated for several nights peri- 
odically, may become permanent during the day. 



CHAPTER XII, 



SOMNAMBULISM. 

Section L — Ecstasy is very favorable to hallucinations — Case — Religious ecsta- 
sies — Times and circumstances favorable to ecstasies — Physiological ecstasy — 
Morbid ecstasy — This division allows the convenient classification of subjects 
of ecstasy — Ecstatic subjects — Ecstasies noticed in children — Various forms of 
ecstasy ; cataleptic, hysteric, mystic, maniac, monomaniac, and epidemic — 
Ecstatic sleep — The scarred maiden of the Tyrol — Ecstatic phenomena have 
been exhibited in all ages — The preaching disease in Sweden — Ecstatic hallu- 
cinations of religious persons. 

Section II. — Of foresight, second sight, magnetism, and somnambulism, in con- 
nection with hallucinations — Analogy between somnambulism and dreams — 
Of diurnal somnambulism — Of moral freedom in the hallucinations of somnam- 
bulism. — Recapitulation. 

SECT. I. -OF HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY. 

Ail who have written on this subject are agreed on one point, 
namely, that those only whose habitual feelings and ideas are 
elevated above the standard of ordinary intellectual life, come 
under its influence. At the same time, they are able to concen- 
trate their thoughts to a high degree, and are consequently in a 
painful state of mind and body. An exception must, however, 
be made with respect to religious habits and mental alienation. 
The influence which they exercise on the organization, occasions 
ecstatic crises in persons of very ordinary intellect. The most 
celebrated subjects of ecstasy are inflamed with the love of 
religion, of morality, of poetry, of the fine arts, of the sciences, 
of philosophy ; they are devoted to the contemplation of the 
Divinity, and of nature. Such a state of mind is eminently 
favorable for the production of hallucinations, which are very 
common among such persons. 

Case XCV. The famous Count Emmanuel Swedenborg be- 
lieved that he had the privilege of enjoying interviews with the 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 213 

world of spirits. In his letters, he has given descriptions of the 
places that he visited, and the conversations he heard. "The 
Lord himself," he says, in a letter prefixed to his theological 
dissertations, " has deigned to show himself to his unworthy ser- 
vant ; he has revealed to me the spiritual world, permitted me 
to converse with spiritual powers, which indulgence has been 
continued to me unto this day."* 

* See Arnold, Observations on the Nature, Kinds, Causes, and Prevention 
of Insanity, 2 vols, in 8vo., London, 1806: the Monthly Review for June, 
1770, vol. lxii. p. 455, and for November, 1778, vol. lis. p. 365; and 
especially The Wonders of Heaven and Hell, by Emmanuel Swedenborg, 
translated from the Latin, by A. J. P., 2 vols, in 8vo., p. 85, Berlin, 1782. 
"YVe subjoin a note on the doctrine by this leader of the Illuminati. 

" The transmission of the mysteries of ancient religions, and principally 
of the Kabbala, mixed with the dogmas of revealed religion, constitutes 
Illuminism. 

"Jacob Boehm, a poor German shoemaker, who lived in the seventeenth 
century, was one of the most ardent propagators of the illuminism of the 
three principles ; but to Swedenborg its developments arc due. In Lon- 
don, in 1788, more than 6000 persons embraced the religious opinions of 
this theosophist." 

In his treatise on Heaven and Hell, he declares that he saw the Lord, 
that he spoke with angels and spirits as with men, during twenty-eight years. 
His first interview with God, as stated in his letter to M. Roboam, was in 
the year 1745. 

" God revealed to him that he should make known to the world the new 
church of which John speaks in the Apocalypse, under the name of the 
New Jerusalem. He adds: 'It is probable I may not be believed; I can- 
not place others where God has placed me.' n 

In considering Swedenborg as an ecstatic, none can refuse him credit 
for an enthusiasm full of faith, and a great elevation of thought. 

It is impossible here to give any idea of his system ; but we may say, 
that he bases his most exalted principles on Holy Writ and the Gospels. 
"It is perhaps," says M. Ferd. Denis, "the most poetical and religious 
transport that has been manifested by a soul initiated into the mysteries 
of the Kabbala. A proof of the intimate relations which exist between 
his system and the ancient Kabbala, is, that the object to which he pur- 
poses to lead us, is the science of correspondences known to the ancients, 
which is no other than the connection of men with spirits. According to 
him, the book of Job is full of correspondences, the hieroglyphics of the 
Egyptians. The ancient fables are only a disguised expression of these cor- 
respondences, of which we have lost the key." (See the article Illuminisme, 
by Ferdinand Denis, op. cit., p. 186, and le Livre des Merveilles du del et de 
VEnfer, by Swedenborg.) We have related, in V Union Medicale, Septem- 
ber, 1851, a most curious hallucination of Swedenborg relative to spiritu- 
alism and materialism. 



214 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Case XCVI. The visions of Jean Engelbrecht bear a close 
resemblance to those of Swedenborg. After passing many 
years in a frightful state of suffering and melancholy, which had 
frequently tempted him to suicide, this doctor at length ap- 
peared to die, and then returned to life. During the short space 
of his apparent death, he imagined that he had visited both 
heaven and hell. From this time, his melancholy left him, and 
was succeeded by a religious exaltation. We subjoin the suc- 
cinct description, which he gives of his experience during this 
singular state: — 

"On Thursday morning I felt that my death was near, and 
that it commenced in the inferior, and passed towards the supe- 
rior extremities. My body became stiff; I lost all sensibility in 
my feet, hands, and other parts. I could neither see nor speak; 
my mouth was paralyzed ; my eyes no longer perceived light. 
I heard the attendants say: 'Feel his limbs; how cold and stiff 
they are! he will soon be dead.' I did not feel their touch, and 
hearing itself soon departed. I was then carried into space 
with the swiftness of an arrow from a bow. During this voyage, 
I reached the gate of hell. A fearful darkness and thick clouds 
struck my sight; my olfactories were painfully affected by a 
smoke, a vapor, an emanation of horrible effluvia. I heard 
howlings, and dreadful lamentations. 

" Thence I was transported, by the Holy Spirit, in a golden 
chariot, to the midst of the splendors of heaven, where I saw a 
choir of holy angels, prophets, and apostles, singing and play- 
ing around the throne of the Most High. The angels resembled 
flames of fire, and the redeemed souls appeared as bright sparks. 
The throne of God was dazzling. I then received a message 
from God, transmitted by an angel." 

The joy which Engelbrecht felt in this communication and 
spectacle was so great, that from that moment he was an en- 
thusiast, who could hardly find words to express what was pass- 
ing in his heart. 

"On returning to myself," he continues, "I felt my body re- 
animated from the head downwards, and I began to hear the 
prayers that were being offered in my room. Sight succeeded 
hearing. By degrees my strength returned. I arose, and felt 
more vigorous than I had ever felt before. Celestial joy had so 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 215 

strengthened me, that the people were extremely surprised to 
see me recover in so short a time." 

From that period, during several years, Jean had visions and 
revelations during the day, whilst his eyes were open, and with- 
out any symptoms of the malady that had preceded the first 
vision. He passed sometimes eight, ten, thirteen days, and even 
three weeks, without either eating or drinking. Once, he re- 
mained for nine months without closing his eyes. On another 
occasion, he heard, during a period of forty-one nights, angels 
sing and play celestial music; and could not help joining with 
them. The persons with him were so transported with joy, that 
they sang with him during a whole night.* 

The state of ecstasy being a phenomenon of extreme nervous 
excitability, it is clear that it must be manifested at all periods 
when the mind has been agitated by fanaticism, and by a belief 
which brings in its train either ardent hopes or strong fears. 
Hence it is evident that it has been more prevalent in times of 
ignorance, than at those periods in which a more advanced 
civilization has enabled reason to triumph over imagination. 
This remark is undeniably true ; and a very little erudition is 
required to acknowledge the existence of ecstasy in the pytho- 
nesses of antiquity, in those initiated into different mysteries, 
the famous sects of the Middle Ages, the possessed, the con- 
vulsed, Shakers, Illuminati, et cetera. 

But if the psychological history of man proves that, whenever 
he is exposed to a permanent moral excitation, his organization 
becomes susceptible of experiencing the phenomenon of ecstasy, 
it is essential to establish a distinction of the highest importance 
between the ecstasy that I shall call physiological and a morbid 
ecstasy. In other words, we believe that ecstasy may have no 
influence on the reason, and is but a very exalted state of enthu- 
siasm, whilst it may also occasion reprehensible and unreason- 
able actions. It is often very difficult to distinguish the shades of 

* Arnold, op. cit., p. 219. See the singular work of S. Alph. Cahagnet, 
Arcanes de la vie futur dteoiUs, 2 vols., Paris, 1849. The statement pub- 
lished by M. le Docteur Carriere, in the Annates Mtdico-Psychologiques du 
Sanctuaire du Spiritualism, by the same author, is calculated to excite the 
curiosity and arrest the attention of the readers of the works of M. Ca- 
hagnet, which appear to us to have more than one point of resemblance to 
the works of Swedenborg. 



216 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

difference between them, and which, nevertheless, prove the infinite 
number of modifications of our being. There will always be an in- 
surmountable difficulty, when we attempt to separate the farthest 
limits of reason from the first approaches of insanity. M. Lelut, 
in his Analogies de la Raison et de la Folie, and M. Moreau, in 
his Chapitre oublie de la Patliologie mentale, have made some 
attempts to clear up the question; but to those who have studied 
the subject, it is scarcely more than glanced at. 

This division ranks in one class prophets, saints, philosophers, 
and many illustrious persons, who have fallen into a state of ec- 
stasy from profound meditation, a sudden illumination of their 
thoughts, or a supernatural intuition, and places in another 
class, beside the individuals already pointed out, the nuns of 
Loudon, the Shakers of Cevennes, the convulsed of Saint Me*- 
dard, and the sick who submitted to the exorcisms of Gassner, 
etc. This second category comprehends likewise the Illuminati, 
the Martinists, the Begards, the Troglodytes,* the quietists of 
Mount Athos, many of whom boasted of having seen God face 
to face. It will be remembered that Madame Guyon, whose 
opinions have excited so much attention, said that, on reaching 
the highest degree of her condition, she saw God and his angels. 

It would seem as though ecstasy should be only induced in 
individuals in whom imagination has had time for development ; 
but experience shows that this phenomenon exists even in a 
number of very young children. In the Theatre Sacre des 
Cevennes (p. 20), we read that children of eight and six years, 
and even younger still, fell into ecstasies, and preached and 
prophesied with others. f 

In 1566, a number of children, brought up in the hospital of 
the city of Amsterdam, girls as well as boys, to the number of 
sixty or seventy, were attacked with an extraordinary disease ; 
they climbed like cats on the walls and roofs. Their aspect was 
alarming; they spoke foreign languages; said wonderful things, 
and even gave an account of all that was then passing in the 
municipal council. It happened that one of these children re- 
vealed to Catharine Gesardi, one of the nurses of the hospital, 
that her son, Jean Nicolai, was preparing his departure for La 

* The Troglodytes were pure Arians. 
f Encyclopedic Catholique, p. 430. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 217 

Haye, and that his errand was for evil. This woman went im- 
mediately to the Basilica, which she reached just as the Council 
was about to rise. She found her son there, who was himself a 
member of the council, and asked him, if it was true that he 
was going to La Haye. Much confused, he confessed that he 
was ; and, on hearing that the child had revealed it, he returned 
and informed the council, who, finding their project was dis- 
covered, abandoned it. 

These children ran in groups, of ten or twelve, through the 
public squares. They went to the rector, and reproached him 
with his most secret actions. It is also asserted that they dis- 
covered several plots against the Protestants.* 

The faculty of prophesying, foretelling the future, and speak- 
ing foreign languages, which appeared really to exist in this 
epidemic, and in that of the Cevennes, was probably due to an 
exalted state of the mind, favored by persecution, and the spirit 
of imitation. This state does not argue any other development 
of mind than that observable in the preaching disease of 
Sweden, of which we shall shortly speak; and in carefully 
examining the individuals so attacked, we shall probably find 
that they were only verifying reminiscences of things, seen or 
heard, wrought out by cerebral excitation. 

Ecstasy may be seen under several aspects, with which it 
is necessary to be acquainted. One of the most remarkable of 
these forms is catalepsy, which gave rise to an opinion amongst 
those who had not carefully studied this nervous affection, that 
visions are not uncommonly produced in this state. 

The greater number of persons who have experienced cata- 
leptic ecstasies, have, when the fit is over, described the inef- 
fable joy they felt, the dreadful phantoms they saw, the divine 
visions and the angelic assemblages which they witnessed. 
Many undertake to predict the future, and to imitate sooth- 
sayers. Many remarkable cases of this kind may be met with 
in the writings of the doctors, f 

* Van Dale, De l'ldolatrise, Prsef. pp. 18 and 19. 

f Conf. Paulinus, cent. iv. obs. 38 ; Marcellus Donatus, cap. i. p. 91, 
seqq. ; Augustinus, de Civitate Dei, lib. xiv. cap. xxiii. ; Act. Medic. Berol. 
Dec. I. vol. ii. p. 62 ; A. N. C. Dec. III. anno 3, obs. 61, and vol. i. obs. 
250, p. 563. 



218 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Case XCVII. An uneducated woman in low life, aged twenty- 
four years, went sometimes to church, and always listened with 
most attention to the Holy Word when it revealed our true con- 
dition, and spoke of the horrors of sin. Absorbed in these 
meditations, her mind was impressed with extreme anguish, and 
her countenance exhibited all the grief with which she was pe- 
netrated. One day, whilst attending service, she was suddenly 
deprived almost entirely of motion and feeling, and at the close 
of her duties, was found motionless as a statue, her eyes open, 
gazing upward, and completely insensible. Without aid, her 
senses returned in the course of an hour. To the questions put 
to her, she replied that she had neither felt, nor heard anything, 
and that she was quite well during this state, which she com- 
pared to a deep sleep ; she had seen her Saviour, and felt de- 
lightful sensations. This fit was repeated more than one hun- 
dred times in forty days. Sometimes it was lighter, and of 
shorter duration than at others ; but in no case was the patient 
affected by the strongest volatile essences applied to the eyes 
and nostrils; and she was equally insensible to frictions and 
punctures. 

During the fit, her pulse, her respiration and complexion 
were in a normal state ; and immediately after it, she was able 
to resume her usual occupations. All her physical functions 
were healthy. During fourteen days she abstained from food 
and drink. It is a remarkable circumstance that the paroxysms 
always came on after she had listened to singing, or to the 
preaching of the gospel, when she expressed an ardent love 
for Christ. This malady having resisted all other means, was 
cured by air and exercise.* 

The case reported by Hoffmann does not belong to catalepsy, 
but to ecstasy. In catalepsy, the mind nearly always remains 
in complete and absolute repose. 

Ecstacy is often combined with Hysteria. — Zimmerman f speaks 
of a lady, gifted with much tenderness and sensibility, who, in 
her youth, had been subject to hysterics. Sometimes she would 
break off a conversation, feeling herself in a divine embrace. 
It has long been remarked that hysterical females have visions 
and hallucinations which resemble ecstasies. 

* Frederici Hoffmanni, Opera Medica, torn. iii. sect. i. cap. iv. p. 50. 
t Traite de ^Experience. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 219 

The following account, communicated by Doctor Sanderet, 
Professor in the Medical College of Besancon, shows the con- 
nection that exists between these two nervous conditions: — 

Case XCYIII. In the village of Voray (Haute Saone), twelve 
or thirteen kilometres from Besancon, lived Alexandrine Lanois, 
a girl seventeen years of age, simple in manners and appear- 
ance, and who, until the occurrence of the circumstances which 
I am about to relate, had attracted no attention. She was the 
daughter of poor parents, lived by the labor of her hands, and 
assisted her mother in household duties. In a word, as the cure 
expressed it, she was insignificant. 

In the month of February, 1850, this young girl had an at- 
tack of pleurisy in the left side. Treated and cured, she expe- 
rienced, towards the close of the same month, a relapse, which 
called for fresh care. This was followed by an attack of fever ; 
first intermittent, then quotidian, then tertian ; which yielded, 
after fifteen days, to sulphate of quinine. 

This sickness had entirely passed away, when, at the beginning 
of June, she had a nervous attack, with hysterical symptoms, 
crises which were repeated twenty or thirty times during the 
day, lasting only a few minutes. 

At the end of July, her ecstasies commenced. I will describe 
one of these, during which I watched her. I mention only the 
essential facts. Every paroxysm was regularly periodical; she 
slept for twelve hours, and then remained awake twenty-four. 
All the preventives prescribed by her medical attendant, such 
as motion, employment of the mind, muscular exertion, and 
repose, were useless; they came on and ended at the regular 
periods. At length, she herself would announce their approach. 
" I am going ;" and, on coming to herself, she would say that 
she had been to paradise. She would then recite prayers, and 
sing psalms. 

Cold baths were employed, and in twelve days the paroxysms 
ceased. The preceding details were supplied to me by M. Jen- 
nin, Jr., a very intelligent physician, living in the village of 
Voray, who had attended Alexandrine Lanois from the com- 
mencement. 

Six months afterwards, in the month of October, the attacks 
reappeared, but their order was inverted; the paroxysms lasted 
twenty-four, the waking state only twelve hours. It was at this 



220 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

time that, in passing through the village, I was taken by a pious 
lady to see the miraculous girl. It was nearly four in the 
afternoon; I was told that I must hurry, if I wished to see her 
awake, as the paroxysms came on at four o'clock. I therefore 
hastened, and entered a narrow and dark room, crowded with 
curious people, who informed me that she had just fallen into 
the ecstatic sleep. I looked at my watch, and found it was two 
minutes after four. 

She was stretched on a bed, the countenance perfectly calm, 
the eyes closed, the eyelids moving incessantly, the limbs supple, 
and falling gently and without effort when they were moved, 
the breathing equal and regular, the pulse quick. 

Her hands were almost joined on her breast. After some 
minutes, she commenced rubbing them slowly and gently. "She 
is going to sing," said her mother to me; and, in fact, she be- 
gan a song, in a full and vibrating voice, but which, neverthe- 
less, was not her own; and although she sang with the accent 
peculiar to the village, yet her singing was undeniably marked 
by a strong musical sentiment. On raising her eyelid, I per- 
ceived the eye rapidly moving from the light ; these repeated 
experiments brought tears to the outer corner of the left eye. 
At this time I pinched her severely, she did not appear to feel 
it; I drove a large pin into her hand, the result was similar; 
her insensibility was complete. 

After a few minutes had passed, some movements of the pa- 
tient were observed, the object of which was evidently to throw 
off the coverings to the foot of the bed. " She is going to rise," 
said her mother, and, in fact, with a strength full of suppleness, 
even of grace, she arose, without the aid of her hands. She first 
sat down; then, without deranging a single fold of her white 
skirt, she stood up in the kind of niche or frame formed by her 
curtains. Her head was slightly inclined to the left, and leaned 
forward ; her arms hung down at a short distance from her body; 
the hands were reversed, the palms turned outwards; the left limb 
was somewhat inflexed', and the lower part of the body slightly 
inclined. 

In fact, she presented very faithfully the attitude of an 
image or statue of the Immaculate Conception, which was very 
common throughout our country, and being classic, was, I be- 
lieve, known everywhere. I cannot give a more precise idea of 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 221 

her appearance than by calling to mind this figure. Alexan- 
drine then repeated some prayers; but, contrary to her style of 
singing, her words were rapid and confused, and I could not 
understand what she said. 

Several times, and successively, I raised her arms to a right 
angle; they descended slowly, and, by an equal continuous 
movement, more precise than if her will had guided them, her 
hands recovered their position. I also endeavored to draw the 
forearm close to the body, and to incline the hand inward ; the 
form of the statue was always resumed. Finally, she stretched 
herself on her bed, and became again immovable. 

The patient appeared fatigued with the diverse trials to which 
I subjected her; her forehead was covered with perspiration, 
and her mother was surprised, as though it were a novel circum- 
stance, at the expression of suffering her countenance exhibited. 
I thus passed an hour with Alexandrine. Her mother, who ap- 
peared to care little for the miracle, as she wanted the assistance 
of her daughter, who was the eldest of seven children, begged 
me to try and cure her. But the patient had announced, several 
days previously, that her paroxysms would cease on Saturday. 
(I saw her on Thursday.) I therefore refused to interfere; 
promising, however, my advice, in case the attacks should con- 
tinue after the time fixed for their termination. 

On Sunday I returned to Voray, led on by a feeling of curi- 
osity which every one can understand. The ecstasies were over. 
Alexandrine was awake. She told me that they would not 
return for some time, but did not indicate the period of their 
return. I questioned her in relation to her journeys to heaven: 
asked her what she had seen, etc. She answered that she had 
seen the good God, who was all white; that she had seen angels, 
etc. ; and that heaven was all gold and silver. This description 
did little honor to her imagination. In fact, when awake, this 
girl was simple, gentle, timid, narrow-minded, and consequently 
free from artifice. 

I promised to use all my efforts to restore her, if she were 
again attacked; she received my promise as though she would 
rejoice in my success, and said that I should have notice. 

On Thursday, the 26th of December, the physician of Voray 
wrote: " Our young ecstatic desires me to inform you that her 
paroxysms will recommence on Monday ; a voice has just an- 



222 . ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

nounced it to her." And on the very day, at eight in the 
morning, the ecstasies recommenced. 

A more astounding fact than all, and which, as a faithful 
historian, I feel bound to relate, had renewed and increased a 
general belief in the miracle. Its only interest to us consists 
in the precision with which the return of the paroxysms was 
announced. 

One day, then, during the week, Alexandrine, sorrowful, ab- 
stracted, and oppressed with a vague feeling of distress, and a 
desire to weep, went for relief to one of her companions, who 
lived at the parsonage. She was walking with her head bent 
down, when she saw before her a lady habited in white, whom 
she at first supposed to be an inhabitant of this world ; but, on 
raising her eyes, she recognized her as the Virgin, by the crown 
on her brow. The Virgin held a prolonged conversation with 
her, announced the return of her ecstasies, which, she said, 
would continue longer than on previous occasions, and then, 
dropping a chaplet at her feet, slowly vanished. 

Alexandrine entered the minister's house in tears, and an ac- 
count of her extraordinary adventure was extorted from her; in 
verification of which, the chaplet was found before the door — a 
chaplet worth two sous. 

Thus the phenomena have increased from the commencement, 
each circumstance becoming more difficult of comprehension un- 
til the last, of which the reader will readily see the significance 
and bearing, by calling to mind the fact that our young girl 
is the object of a curiosity which has, beyond measure, daily 
increased. 

On the 5th of January, my worthy brother and friend, Dr. 
Druhen, accompanied me to Voray. He found the facts pre- 
cisely as I had related them. In order to satisfy himself in 
relation to several phenomena by personal observation, he re- 
peated my experiments, and completed them, by adding, for 
example, a vial of ammonia, which, placed carelessly to her 
nose, produced no effect. He even magnetized the patient, and 
questioned her, but in vain. The pulse was 112, the breathing 
22. The paroxysms, always perfectly periodical, lasted thirty-six 
hours, as the white lady had predicted, and the waking state 
twenty-four. While the ecstasy continued (and it was thus 
throughout), all the natural functions of the body were sus- 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 223 

pended. During the intervals she enjoyed her usual excellent 
health, with appetite and alimentation unimpaired. 

The regularity of the paroxysms required the medication to 
be anti-periodical, which plan we advised, to the exclusion of 
all others. 

I have simply given the case. The therapeutic point here 
offers only a secondary interest, and it is not as an example for 
practice that one can contemplate so exceptionable a case; but 
it is merely stated as a case. New phases may arise, and I may 
be enabled to complete my observations. 

P. S. This morning I received the following letter from my 
colleague at Voray: — 

"I myself administered the sulphate of quinine to the girl 
Lanois. On the 6th of January, in the morning, 0.75 centi- 
grammes divided into two doses, were injected; in the evening of 
the same day, at eight, the paroxysms came on, and lasted thirty- 
six hours, as before. At eight in the evening, before the anti- 
cipated return of another attack, I gave the sulphate, as before, 
in two doses. On the following morning, another paroxysm and 
menstruation. Finally, on the 11th, at half-past seven, in the 
morning, I again administered 7.5 centigrammes, and, at eight, 
our ecstatic subject departed for unknown worlds. Resultat 
0."* 

The ecstatic of the Vosges, we saw in company with Messrs. 
Duchenne of Boulogne, Bouchut, and Brown-Se'quard. The two 
last-mentioned physicians, who, by a powerful electric shock, 
proved insensibility, and, consequently, a diseased condition, 
have both presented particulars of their conjectures relative to 
the paroxysms, and the phenomenon of hallucinations. During 
her attacks, we have heard her converse with angels, and the Vir- 
gin, as if in their presence. The harmonious tones of her voice, 
the expression of her features, and the air of beatitude which her 
countenance displayed, were indescribable. Whether she ex- 
pressed herself in verse or in prose, her discourse was entirely 
upon religious subjects. The account describes her as often- 
times transported to heaven, and, as having seen, in her ecsta- 
sies her father and her brother, who have been dead for many 
years. This young girl is aged twenty, and very pretty, and 

* Annales Medico-psychologiques, Avril, 1851. 



224 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

there is something in her whole appearance calculated to excite 
the liveliest interest in her. We much regret that our proposal 
to receive herself and her mother into our establishment, was 
rejected. Both Truth and Science would have profited by the 
acceptance of our offer. 

Mystic ecstasy occurs chiefly in subjects of great fervor, and 
who are addicted to fasting and prayer. It also occurs in those 
accustomed to deprive themselves of sleep, and who live an 
ascetic and contemplative life. It is, in a certain degree, pos- 
sible, by carrying these practices to an extravagant pitch, to 
bring on ecstasy. 

Case XCIX. Jeanne de Rochet, a young lady of the court 
of Louis the Fourteenth, who retired into solitude, in order, 
through the means of extreme privation, to reach perfection, has 
related, in a work of three volumes, the history of her long 
martyrdom. "I eat," she says, "but once in the day, and sleep 
only four hours. At the foot of the crucifix, I hear all that my 
Saviour is pleased to communicate. My mental labors (prayers 
and ejaculations) continue sometimes for forty-eight hours, 
during which time I neither eat nor drink. The devil then 
combats me in every way, and shows me horrible spectres. I 
have passed whole months without closing my eyes. I killed my 
body, in order to raise my spirit to God. For more than fifteen 
days I have wandered the forest like a mad person, without 
repeating a prayer." 

"On Palm-Sunday, whilst undergoing the discipline of fire, I 
saw a very hideous man, who appeared similarly engaged ; and 
at every stroke that he gave, he uttered a piercing cry, and 
each time said : ' It is for such a sin.' 

" Occasionally I experienced great ravishment, but more fre- 
quently I was tempted by the devil." 

One of the most extraordinary instances of ecstasy that has 
ever been witnessed, has been related by writers worthy of cre- 
dence, Professors Goerres, Leon Bore', Edmund Cazales, Ce'rise, 
etc., known by the appellation of "The Scarred Maiden of 
Tyrol."* 

* Les Stigmatisees du Tyrol, ou l'Extatique de Kaldern, et la Patiente 
de Capriana ; histories translated from the Italian, German, and English, 
by M. Leon Bore, Paris, 1843 ; and reproduced, by Dr. Cerise, in his In- 
troduction to the new edition of Systeme Physique et Morale de la Femme, 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 225 

Case C. Marie de Moerl was born the 16th of October, 1812, 
of a noble but reduced family. In her infancy, she was subject 
to many severe nervous affections. At twenty, in 1832, her 
confessor noticed that sometimes she did not answer his ques- 
tions, and that she appeared abstracted. The attendants of the 
young girl informed him that she was always affected in this 
manner when she received the communion. He promised to 
watch her closely. On the day of the Fete Dieu, he carried the 
Host to her early in the morning. She was instantly transported 
into an ecstasy. The next day, at three in the afternoon, he 
went to see her, and found her kneeling in the same spot where 
he had left her thirty-six hours previously. The persons about 
her, already accustomed to the sight, attested that she had re- 
mained in that position. The confessor undertook to prevent 
the recurrence of this state, which, he feared, might become ha- 
bitual. To this end he inculcated the virtue of an obedience, which 
the young girl had vowed on entering the third order of Saint 
Francois. The ecstasies recurred, however, accompanied with 
phenomena more or less extraordinary, until towards the middle 
of the year 1833. At this time, a crowd of the curious, attracted 
by the voice of rumor, visited the ecstatic. It is calculated that 
40,000 persons visited Kaldern, between the months of July and 
September. Marie remained all this time in an ecstasy. The 
visits were forbidden by the authorities. The Prince Bishop of 
Trente, desirous of knowing the truth, that he might communi- 
cate it to the government, came to the place. He declared that 
the malady of Marie did not in itself constitute a state of sanc- 
tity, but that her acknowledged piety was not a malady. The 
police, after this prudent declaration, interfered no more. In 
the autumn of the same year, her confessor perceived that the 
palms of the hands, where subsequently the marks of crucifixion 
appeared, sank in, as under the pressure of a body in half-relief. 
At the same time the part became painful, and frequently 
cramped. On the 2d of February, 1834, at the feast of the Puri- 
fication, he observed her wipe the middle of her hands with a 
towel, and exhibit a childlike alarm at the blood she perceived 

par Roussel, Paris, 1845. This learned doctor has prefixed and appended 
to these curious cases, Interesting Reflections on the Influence of Emotivity 
in Women. 

15 



226 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

there. These marks soon showed themselves on her feet and on 
her heart. They were nearly round, spreading a little in length, 
three or four lines in diameter, and seeming to pass through both 
hands and both feet. On Thursday night and Friday, all these 
wounds shed drops of blood, ordinarily clear. On other evenings, 
they were covered with a crust of dried blood. Marie maintained 
the most profound silence on these wonderful facts ; but, in 1834, 
the day of the visitation, the ecstasy came on during a proces- 
sion, and surprised her in the presence of witnesses; she was 
seen twice absorbed in the most lively joy, her countenance 
flushed with a rose-like hue, and radiant with an angelic expres- 
sion. She scarcely touched the bed with the point of her feet ; 
her arms were extended, and all the attendants marked the 
prints on her hands. From that period this wonderful peculiarity 
could no longer remain a secret. 

" The first time that I visited her," says the celebrated Dr. 
Gcerres, "I found her in the position in which she remains 
during the greater part of the day, on her knees, at the foot of 
the bed, in ecstasy ; her hands were crossed on her breast, and 
showed the prints ; her face was turned a little upward, and 
towards the church; her eyes were raised to heaven, expressing 
the most profound abstraction, which nothing external could 
disturb. During whole hours, I was unable to detect any mo- 
tion in her body, excepting that produced by an almost insen- 
sible respiration or a slight oscillation, and I can only com- 
pare her attitude to that in which angels are represented before 
the throne of God, absorbed in the contemplation of his glory. 
It will readily be imagined that this spectacle most vividly 
impressed the minds of all who witnessed it. According to the 
report of the cure', and other directors of her conscience, she 
has been in a constant ecstasy for four years. Most generally, 
the subject of meditation in the ecstatic is the passion of our 
Saviour, which produces on her the most profound impression, 
and is exhibited externally. Every Friday in the year, the 
contemplation of this mystery is renewed, and thus affords the 
opportunity of frequently watching its marvellous effects. The 
action commences on Friday morning. If the facts are followed 
up, it is observable that as certain persons speak their thoughts 
aloud, without being conscious of the words they are uttering, 
so Marie de Mcerl reproduces the passion by meditation without 
knowing what she does. At first, the movements are soft and 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 227 

regular ; but in proportion as the action becomes more distress- 
ing and powerful, the image which she assumes takes a deeper 
and more distinct character. Finally, when the last hour 
approaches, and her heart is lacerated by grief, death is 
imaged on every feature. She is there on her knees, her hands 
crossed on her breast. A mournful silence reigns around, 
scarcely disturbed by the breathing of the attendants. Pale as 
her countenance may have appeared during this sorrowful drama, 
you observe her grow still paler ; the shudder of death occurs 
more frequently, and life is gradually departing. 

" Sighs, breathed with difficulty, announce that the oppression 
augments. Her eyes, more and more fixed and immovable, shed 
large drops of tears that fall slowly down her cheeks. Nervous 
spasms occur ; involuntarily she opens her mouth; like a thunder- 
cloud presaging a storm, these spasms form larger and larger 
circles, until her whole countenance is distorted, and they finally 
become so violent that, from time to time, they shake her whole 
frame. Respiration, already so difficult, is changed into painful 
and plaintive sighs ; a dull redness covers her cheeks ; the 
swollen tongue seems to cleave to the palate ; the convulsions 
become quicker and stronger ; the hands, hitherto crossed, give 
way, and fall rapidly ; the nails assume a blue tinge, and the 
fingers are convulsively interlocked. 

"Presently, the rattle is heard in the throat. The breath 
comes with more effort from the breast, which seems bound with 
thongs of iron ; the features are so distorted as to be scarcely 
recognized ; the mouth is wide open, the nose shrunken, the 
eyes are fixed, and seem ready to burst their orbits. At long 
intervals, some sighs escape through the stiffening organs; 
and it would seem that the last must soon be uttered. The 
head then bows with every sign of death ; and the whole 
appearance is totally unlike herself. All remains thus for the 
space of about a minute and a half. Then the head is raised, 
the hands return to the breast, the countenance recovers its 
form and calm expression ; she is on her knees, absorbed in 
offering her thanksgiving to God. And this scene is renewed 
weekly, always the same in its essential phases, but more par- 
ticularized in Holy Week, and each time showing the peculiar 
traits corresponding to the actual state of mind of the patient. 
I convinced myself of this by a careful examination on several 



228 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

occasions ; for there is nothing studied, nothing false, nothing 
exaggerated, in all this marvellous representation, which flows 
like an equal stream ; and if Marie de Mcerl actually died, her 
death could not appear more real. 

" Howsoever absorbed in her contemplations the ecstatic may 
be, a single word from her confessor, or any person in spiritual 
connection with her, is sufficient to recall her to real life, without 
passing through any intermediate state. One instant suffices 
for her to recover, and she opens her eyes as though she had 
not been in ecstasy. The expression of her countenance in- 
stantly changes ; it resembles that of a lively child, who has 
preserved its simplicity and candor. The first thing she does 
on coming to herself, is to hide her marked hands beneath the 
bedclothes, like a child that has inked its sleeves and hears the 
footsteps of its mother. Then, being so accustomed to a con- 
course of strangers, she looks around and gives to each a friendly 
greeting. She exhibits great uneasiness when the emotions of 
those by whom she is surrounded, and which arise from witness- 
ing her apparent sufferings, are too visible. When they are im- 
pressed with a feeling of veneration and solemnity, she endeavors, 
with a charming liveliness of manner, to efface the feeling. As 
she has long kept entire silence, she tries to make herself under- 
stood by signs ; and when that fails, like a child who cannot yet 
speak, she looks to her confessor, and, with her eyes, begs him 
to answer for her. 

" Her black eyes express the joy and ingenuousness of child- 
hood. Her clear and expressive countenance at once forbids 
the idea that her heart can be the chamber of fraud or hypo- 
crisy. There is no appearance of gloom or of exaltation ; no 
weak nor false sentimentality ; and still less of hypocrisy and 
pride. Her whole appearance conveys the impression of a 
serene and joyous childhood preserved in innocence, easily 
yielding to playfulness, because the pure and delicate tact which 
she possesses rejects all that might be unseemly. When with 
her friends, she can, once restored to herself, remain so for some 
time ; but it is evident that it is with a great effort, for the 
ecstasy has become her second nature, and the life of others 
is, to her, something artificial and unusual. 

" In the midst of a conversation, in which she even appears 
to take pleasure, her eyes suddenly close, and without any 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 229 

transition, she returns into her ecstasy. During my stay at Kal- 
dern, she was requested to be godmother to a new-born child, 
who was baptized in her chamber. She took it in her arms, 
and manifested the greatest interest in the whole ceremony; but 
several times she fell back into ecstasy, and it was necessary to 
recall her to the reality of what was going on around her. 

" The beholder is astonished at seeing Marie de Mcerl pass 
from common to ecstatic life; lying on her back, she seems to 
float on the waves of a luminous tide, and to throw a joyous look 
on all around. Suddenly she plunges gently into the abyss ; the 
waves play for an instant around her, they then cover her face, 
and you follow her with your eyes as she descends into the 
depths of the pellucid waters. From that moment, the lively 
child has disappeared, and when in the midst of her transfigured 
features, her dark eyes are opened to their full extent, and dart- 
ing their rays into vacancy, she looks a very sibyl, but full of 
nobleness and pathetic dignity. 

" It must not, however, be supposed that her contemplations 
and pious exercises prevent her attending to domestic duties. 
From her bed she directs the household, the cares of which she 
formerly shared with a sister, but whom death has removed. 
She has enjoyed for several years a pension obtained for her by 
charitable persons ; and as her wants are few, she devotes it to 
the education of her brothers and sisters. Daily, about two in 
the afternoon, her confessor recalls her to ordinary life, in order 
that she may attend to the affairs of the house. They then 
confer together on the subject ; she thinks of everything, attends 
to the wants of those in whom she is interested, and, as she pos- 
sesses good common sense, everything about her is well regu- 
lated." 

We will not give the recital, by M. Edmond Cazales on 
Dominica Lazzari, the Patiente de Oapriana, because the case, 
however extraordinary, bears no direct relation to our subject. 

Great joy, like great grief, is equally favorable to ecstasy, by 
the elevated character it gives to thought. 

Ecstasy is not uncommon in insane asylums ; but to shun error, 
it is necessary to notice whether the patient is not obeying some 
superior order, which tells him to remain motionless, or to take 
such or such a position. It may be exhibited under the forms 
of mania and monomania. 



230 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Leuret has described the case of an hallucinated mad woman, 
who had ecstasies, in which she saw God. She knelt before the 
sun, and then experienced a great inward exaltation, and exceed- 
ing pleasure. God spoke to her; the pleasurable sensations were 
chiefly confined to her breast and stomach ; but God, she said, 
could excite these sensations in all the members. It was not 
only when she looked at the sun that she beheld the Creator, 
but she saw him in her dormitory and in her walks. To behold 
him, she had but to pray. She saw him also during her sleep, 
and even before going to sleep. He appeared to her as possess- 
ing a physical form ; fair, and clothed in the habiliments of man ; 
infinite goodness and benevolence beamed upon his smiling face. 
In speaking of her sensations, she observed that bread and 
water, and that exaltation, was the highest pleasure that could 
be experienced; and if all could be satisfied of this truth, they 
would require nothing more. 

As ecstasy can be produced whenever a high degree of moral 
exaltation exists, it will be understood that it did not cease its 
manifestations with the Dark Ages, although these were favor- 
able to it. We find it existing in the eighteenth century, and 
daily produced before our eyes. Lately, the rapid spread of the 
religious ecstasy in Sweden in the form of an epidemic, and 
with which we will close this notice, proves the truth of the 
assertion. 

In the course of the year 1841 to 1842, there appeared, in 
the country about the central part of Sweden, a disease charac- 
terized by two striking and remarkable symptoms : the one, 
physical, consisted of a spasmodic attack, involuntary contrac- 
tions, contortions, etc.; the other, psychical, was announced by 
an ecstasy more or less involuntary, during which the patient be- 
lieved that he saw or heard things divine and supernatural, and 
was instigated to speak, or, as the people expressed it, to preach. 
(Many medical men consider this disease as one form of the 
chorea of the Middle Ages.) 

During their ecstasies, the persons attacked were remarkable 
for an irresistible loquacity, a constant mania for preaching the 
Word of God, and for visions and prophesyings. In consequence 
of the peculiar tendency of this singular affection, it has been 
called the preaching -disease. Most of the faculty, who wit- 
nessed these paroxysms, have compared them to somnambulism, 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 231 

or the magnetic sleep ; but no one has been able to say posi- 
tively that they belonged to either of these states. 

The sick persons frequently spoke of visions which they had 
had in heaven and hell, of angels, etc. They also predicted the 
end of the world, the last judgment, and the day of their own 
death, always with the assumption that their predictions were 
real and holy prophecies. It will be remembered that the greater 
number of the convulsed of St. Medard also predicted that the 
end of the world would occur on a day which they fixed; but, 
as with the Swedes and Millenarians, their prophecies were not 
accomplished. 

These ecstatics, when the paroxysm was over, appeared as 
though they emerged from a dream. They averred that they 
had seen supernatural sights, and recited the prophecies; that 
they had seen the place of punishment for the condemned, and, 
also, the elect seated at the Lord's table. 

This state may be associated with mania, with hypochondria, 
and with madness. The malady usually attacked persons from 
sixteen to thirty, frequently also children from six to sixteen, 
and even some aged persons. It is another point of resemblance 
to the Shakers of the CeVennes ; and, in the Theatre sacre des 
Cevennes (p. 30), is the following deposition by Guilliaume Bru- 
guier: "I saw at Aubersaque three or four children from the ages 
of three to six, seized with the spirit. When I was with a man 
named Jacques Boussige, one of his children, aged three years, 
was attacked, and fell to the ground; he was much agitated, and 
beat his breast violently, saying, it was for the sins of his mother 
he was suffering." Another witness assured me that he had 
seen a child of fifteen months in a similar condition. 

The greater number of the persons so attacked were of the 
lower class. It was a psychical contagion, brought on by imi- 
tation. In one year several thousand persons had the epidemic. 

A development of the intellectual faculties was not remarked 
in this disease ; or, if it did exist, it was an exception ; the 
greater number of the discourses and sermons were paltry and 
void of ideas ; often consisting of pure nonsense, more frequently 
of exclamations repeated unto satiety, and continual repetition 
of the same trifles, uttered in a sententious tone. 

We would enforce this remark, because the ecstatic state is 



232 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

often accompanied by a sense of exaltation which gives eloquence 
to ordinary minds. On this point, we could relate a curious 
history of a person, who, in his inspired moments, exercised 
such an influence over the malefactors in the prison with him, 
that they obeyed all his commands. 

Fanaticism, ignorance, and the thousands of religious tracts 
distributed amongst the people, had, according to the opinion 
of the Swedish faculty, induced a state of preparation for this 
epidemic. The causes are clearly pointed out by the author, 
who says justly, that the origin of a mental disease has rarely 
been so distinctly shown.* 

The ecstatic state is frequently met with amongst primitive 
people, in whom the religious feeling is strongly developed. M. 
Ferdinand Denis relates that a friend of his, who has resided 
fourteen years in the East Indies, has frequently seen the Hin- 
doos voluntarily fall into ecstasy. The North and South 
Americans have traditional recollections that throw them into 
an ecstatic state, during which they believe they have communion 
with spirits. 

The phenomena of ecstasy are developed in the most remark- 
able manner, among the Kamschatdales, the Yakouls, and other 
people who inhabit the far north, where the diviners wound 
themselves horribly, without either suffering or appearing to 
suffer. 

The ecstatic state is also exhibited in Otaheite, in the Sand- 
wich Islands, and in Polynesia. Marinerf relates that the son 
of King Finow often told him that he was inspired by the soul 
of Toogoo-Ahoo, the last king of the Tonga Isles ; that he no 
longer felt his personal existence, and that his body seemed 
animated by a spirit not his own. Being interrogated as to the 
nature of the spirit that moved him, and how it descended upon 
him, he replied : " What a foolish question ! Can I tell you 
how I know it? I know it because I feel the conviction, and 
because I am warned by a voice." 

We could multiply facts of this nature ; but it will be suffi- 

* Gazette Medicale, No. 33, t. xi. 1842, Mgmoire sur VExtase religieuse 
epidZmiqiie that raged in Sweden in 1841 and 1842, by M. le Docteur C. N. 
Souden, physician in the insane hospital at Stockholm. 

f Voyage to Tonga-Taboo. 



233 

cient to remind the reader that they are described in ancient 
and modern travels of all nations.* 



SECT. II.— OF HALLUCINATIONS IN MAGNETISM AND SOM- 
NAMBULISM. 

A very extraordinary nervous condition is acquired when man 
is deprived of the action of the senses, by isolating him com- 
pletely from the outer world, concentrating his mind on himself, 
whilst he submits unresistingly to the influence of the experi- 
menter who produces these surprising effects. But, howsoever 
curious may be the phenomena of magnetism, they are surpassed 
by those of somnambulism, in which the subject, at the command 
of the master, can display his most secret thoughts, and some- 
times even the nature of his complaints. These facts, of 
which the ancients had a glimpse, are now recognized. Ani- 
mal magnetism is practised by the aborigines of North and 
South America ; and may be traced back to antiquity. Since 
the sixteenth century, Vanhelmont and Maxwell have described 
in their writings, their most important principles. 

The modern form has been revealed by Illuminism, for Swe- 
denborg said, in 1763: "Man may be raised to celestial light, 
even in this world, if his corporeal senses are wrapped in a ! 
lethargic sleep. "f 

It is unfortunate that magnetism and somnambulism have 
been attempted by quacks and rogues — a circumstance which 
has driven intelligent men from studying the subject. The 
exaggerations also to which the partisans of this doctrine have 
given way have been no less prejudicial to the examination of 
the question. 

These remarks show that we cannot accept without reserva- 
tion the judgment of the illustrious Bailly ; but, in recognizing 
the power of the imagination, we believe that there exist facts 
in magnetism and somnambulism from which both psychology 
and medicine will derive valuable results. 

The plan of this book will oblige us to examine these two 
states only in their connection with hallucination. We will, 

* Ferd. Denis, Tableau liistorique analytique et critique, des Sciences 
occultes, p. 203, et seq. Paris, 1842. 
f Ferdinand Denis, op cit. p. 191. 



234 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

therefore, commence our study by prevision, which is re- 
lated to magnetism and somnambulism by the common tie of 
ecstasy. 

Prevision, which has been attacked and defended with so much 
vehemence, is illustrated by such curious facts, and is supported 
by so many respectable witnesses, that impartiality requires us 
to notice some of them, before we adopt any opinion on the sub- 
ject. One of the most authentic cases of prevision is mentioned 
by Josephus : — 

Case CI. Four years previous to the beginning of the war, 
when Jerusalem was enjoying peace and abundance, Jesus, son 
of Ananus, a simple peasant, having come to the Feast of Taber- 
nacles, which was kept every year in the Temple, in honor of 
God, cried out: " A voice from the East — a voice from the West 
— a voice from the four winds — a voice against Jerusalem and 
the Temple — a voice against the bride and the bridegroom — a 
voice against all the people !" And he ceased not night and day 
to traverse the city, repeating the same thing. Some persons of 
rank, unwilling to allow such ominous words to be uttered, had 
him taken and beaten with rods. He offered no word of defence 
or complaint for such cruel treatment ; but still repeated the 
same words. 

Then the magistrates, believing, as was the fact, that he was 
divinely inspired, brought him before Albinus, governor of Judea. 
He had him flogged severely, which did not extract a single prayer 
or tear ; but, at every blow, he repeated, with a plaintive voice : 
"Woe, woe to Jerusalem !" And when Albinus asked him who 
he was, and why he spoke in that manner, he answered nothing. 
The governor then dismissed him as a madman, and from that 
time, until the war commenced, he spoke to no one. But he 
repeated, unceasingly: "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" without re- 
proaching those who beat him, or thanking those who fed him. 
All his words were confined to this sad presage, which he uttered 
in a louder voice on feast-days. He continued this conduct for 
seven years and five months, without intermission, and his voice 
became neither weak nor hoarse. 

When Jerusalem was besieged, his predictions were verified; 
and then, pacing the walls, he cried : "Woe to the city, woe to 
the people, woe to the temple !" and, while repeating the words, 



235 

"Woe to myself!" a stone, thrown from a machine, struck him 
to the earth, and he yielded up his spirit.* 

Saint Gregory of Tours, the best annalist of the fifth century, 
has mentioned a circumstance, which was also witnessed by a 
number of persons: — 

Case CII. St. Ambrose was apprised of the death of Saint 
Martin at Tours (in the year A. D. 400), in the church at Milan, 
during the mass. 

It was customary for the reader to present himself before the 
officiating priest with the book, and not to read the lesson until 
he was told by him to do so. Now it happened that, on the 
Sunday in question, whilst he who was prepared to read the 
Epistle of St. Paul, was standing before the altar, St. Ambrose, 
who was celebrating the mass, fell asleep on the altar. 

Two or three hours passed, and no one dared to awake him. 
At length the bystanders ventured to tell him how long he had 
kept the people waiting: " Be not troubled," said he; "it has been 
a great blessing to me to sleep, since God has worked a great 
miracle; know that my brother St. Martin has just died. I 
have assisted at his obsequies, and, after the usual service, there 
only remained the capitulary to repeat, when you awoke me." 

The assistants were much surprised. They noted the day and 
hour, and it was discovered that the happy confessor had died 
at the very instant when St. Ambrose described himself as as- 
sisting at his funeral, f 

Reason and science would explain these facts as an undue 
excitement of the brain, and as a simple coincidence; but that is 
only putting aside the difficulty. Thus, in the case related by 
St. Gregory, the death of St. Martin at Tours was known to 
St. Ambrose at the moment it occurred, although a distance of 
more than two hundred leagues separated them. In speaking 
of presentiments in dreams, we have related the anecdote of 
Miss R., whose character and mind vouch for the accuracy of 
the details with which she furnished me. In her case, also, the 
time of her mother's death exactly coincided with her dream. 
Our researches into the mechanism of mind are vain; how, 

* "War of the Jews against the Romans, Book VI., chap. 31, p. 77 J, edi- 
tion Pantheon Litteraire. 
f Gregoire de Tours, De Miraculis St. Martini, lib. i. eh. 5. 



I 

236 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

then, can we expect to be more learned when we consider it in 
its abnormal state? 

We must not lose sight of the fact that men of the highest 
intelligence have recognized the truth of cases of prevision, 
whilst they acknowledge ignorance of the causes. Bacon says, 
that there are striking examples of prevision of the future in 
dreams, in ecstasies, and at the approach of death.* 

"I cannot give the reason," remarks Machiavel, "but it is 
an attested fact in all history, both ancient and modern, that 
no great misfortune ever happened to a city or province that 
was not predicted by some soothsayer, or announced by revela- 
tions, prodigies, or other celestial signs. It is very desirable 
that the matter should be discussed by men learned on matters 
natural and supernatural, an advantage that I do not possess. 
Be that as it may, the fact is undeniable."! 

M. le Maistre observes that the spirit of prophecy is natural 
to our kind, and will never cease to be heard in the world. 
Man, by attempting at all times, and in all places, to dive into 
the future, declares that he is not formed for time ; "for time is 
a forced thing, that only desires to come to an end," (quelque 
chose de force qui ne demande qua finir.) 

Thence it is that in our dreams we take no note of time, and 
that a state of sleep was always judged favorable to divine com- 
munications.! 

We could relate a vast number of anecdotes in support of the 
opinion of Machiavel; but a few will suffice. 

In the year 1483, Savonarola believed that he felt within 
him the secret and prophetic impulse which pointed him out as 
the reformer of the church, and called him to preach repentance 
to Christians, whilst he denounced to them the calamities with 
which Church and State were equally menaced. In 1484, he 
commenced, at Brescia, his preaching on the Apocalypse, and an- 
nounced to his auditory that the walls would one day be bathed 
in torrents of blood. Two years after the death of Savonarola, 
this menace appeared to be accomplished, when, in 1500, the 

* Bacon, De la Dignite de PAccroissement des Sciences, torn. ii. liv. ii. 

f Machiavel, Discours sur Tite-Live, liv. i. p. 56. 

% M. le Maistre, Soirees de St. Petersbourg, lie entretien, p. 355. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 237 

French, under the Duke de Nemours, seized upon Brescia, and 
devoted the inhabitants to a dreadful massacre.* 

"Savonarola," says Philippe de Commines, "had always as- 
serted the coming of the King, and that he was sent by God to 
chastise the tyrants of Italy, and that nothing could succeed 
against him ; he had also said that he would enter Pisa, and that, 
on that day, the States of Florence would cease to exist ; and so 
it happened, for Pierre de Medicis was on that day driven out. 
And he predicted many occurrences which took place, such as 
the death of Laurentia de Medicis ; and he also publicly said, 
it was revealed to him that the state of the Church would be 
reformed by the sword. This prediction has been nearly, 
though not quite fulfilled, "f 

The author of a summary of the life of Cattho, Archbishop of 
Vienna, printed with his Memoirs, relates that he first announced 
the death of Charles the Bold to Louis the Eleventh. " At 
the instant," says the Summary, "that the said duke was killed, 
King Louis was hearing mass, in the church of Saint Martin at 
Tours, distant ten good days' journey, at least, from Nancy ; 
and at the said mass, the Archbishop of Vienna acted as chap- 
lain, who, in offering the salutation, said these words to him: 
4 Sire, God grants you peace and repose; they are yours, if you 
desire it, quia eonsummatum est; your enemy the Duke of 
Burgundy is dead ; he has just now been killed, and his army 
discomfited.' The hour designated was subsequently found to be 
that in which the said Duke was killed. "J 

Thirteen years previously to the revolution of 1789, P&re 
Beauregard (a learned preacher) made the arches of N6tre 
Dame vibrate with these singular words : " Yea, thy temples, 
Lord, will be desecrated and destroyed, thy feasts abolished, 
thy name blasphemed, thy worship proscribed. But, what do I 
hear? Great God ! what do I see? Lascivious and profane 
songs succeed the holy canticles, to which these arches have 
resounded in thy honor. And thou, infamous divinity of pagan- 
ism, wanton Venus ! thou comest here audaciously to take the 

* Simond Sismondi, Hist. Ital., torn. xii. p. 67 ; Vita di Savonarola, liv. 
i. ix. xv. p. 19. 

f Memoire de Philippe de Commines, lib. viii. ch. iii. p. 270, et ch. xxxvi. 
p. 443. 

% Biogr. Univer., torn. viii. p. 420 — Signe, W. S. 



238 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

place of the living God, to sit on the throne of the Saint of 
Saints, and receive the culpable incense of thy new adorers."* 

The prediction of Cazotte, avouched by La Harpe, by Madame 
de Genlis, Madame la Comtesse de Beauharnais, &c, should 
not be passed by in silence ; and, although the relation can only 
be received hesitatingly, it does not the less belong to history, 
as much on account of the rank of the personages concerned 
as of the importance of the events. 

"It appears to me but yesterday," says La Harpe, "and yet 
it was early in 1788. We were dining with one of the members 
of our Academy, a man of rank and talent. The guests were 
numerous and of all ranks ; courtiers, lawyers, writers, academi- 
cians, &c. ; as usual, they had feasted. At dessert, the wines of 
Malvoisie and Constantia gave to the gayety of the company that 
sort of license not always discreet ; they had arrived at that 
pitch when anything was allowable to raise a laugh. Chamfort 
had read his insipid and libertine tales, and the great ladies had 
listened without having recourse to their fans. Then arose a 
deluge of jokes on religion. One quoted a tirade of La Pucelle; 
another recollected these philosophic verses by Diderot : — 

' Et des boyaux du dernier pretre 
Serrez le cou du dernier roi/f 

and applauded them. A third rose, and holding a brimming 
glass, said: i Sirs, I am as sure that there is no God, as I am 
that Homer is a fool ;' and in fact he was as sure of the one as 
of the other. 

"The conversation then became more serious ; they were full 
of admiration at the revolution effected by Voltaire, and agreed 
that he had won the highest title to glory. He had given the 
ton to his age, and was equally read in the antechamber and 
the saloon. One of the guests told us, with bursts of laughter, 
that his hair-dresser had said to him : ' You see, sir, although I 
am no more than a poor apprentice, I have no more religion 
than others.' It was agreed that the revolution would soon be 
completed ; that superstition and fanaticism must absolutely 

* Biog. univ., t. iii. p. 421 ; nouv. edit., article Beauregard, Sig. T. D. 

f And the bowels of the last priest 
Bound the neck of the last king. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 239 

give way to philosophy ; and they set about calculating the pro- 
bable time of its supremacy, and who among them would witness 
the advent of the age of reason. The aged lamented the impro- 
bability of their beholding it, while the young rejoiced in the hope 
of seeing it reach its meridian glory. The academy was above all 
congratulated on having prepared the great work, and on having 
been the principal promoters of liberty of thought. 

" One alone of the guests had not taken part in the gayety of 
conversation, and had even passed a few quiet jokes on our fine 
enthusiasm; it was Cazotte, an amiable and original man, but 
unfortunately infatuated with the reveries of the Illuminists. He 
took up the conversation, and in a serious tone, said : ' Gentle- 
men, be content ; you will all witness this grand and sublime 
revolution that you so much desire. You know I am somewhat 
of a prophet. I repeat, you will see it.' They reply by the 
well-known line, ' No need to be a sorcerer for that.' ' Be it so ; 
but perhaps a little of the prophetic spirit is necessary to fore- 
see what remains for me to tell. Do you know what will be the 
result of this revolution — what will happen to you all ? Do you 
know what will be the immediate practical effect, the recognized 
consequence ?' ' Ah! tell us,' said Condorcet, with his deceitful 
and innocent look ; \ a philosopher is not sorry to encounter a 
prophet.' 'For you, Monsieur de Condorcet, you will die 
stretched on the floor of a dungeon ; you will die of the poison 
that you will take in order to avoid the block; of the poison 
which the happiness of that time will oblige you to carry about 
with you.' 

" At first, much surprise was exhibited, but they presently 
recollected that the good Cazotte was subject to waking dreams, 
and they laughed heartily: 'Monsieur Cazotte, the tale that 
you have told is not so good as your Diable Amoureux.' 

" ' But what devil has put this dungeon, and poison, and 
execution into your head ? What can that have to do with philo- 
sophy and the reign of reason ?' ' That is exactly what I am 
telling you ; it is in the name of philosophy, of humanity, and 
liberty, and under the reign of reason, that you will meet with 
this fate ; and well may it be called the reign of reason, for she 
will then occupy all the churches, and there will not then be in 
all France any other temples than those dedicated to the god- 
dess of Reason.' 'By my faith,' said Chamfort, with a sarcas- 



240 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

tic laugh, 'you will not be a priest in those temples.' ' I hope 
not ; but you, Monsieur de Chamfort, who will be one, and a 
worthy one, will open your veins with twenty-two razor-cuts, 
and yet you will not die for some months.' They looked at each 
other, and laughed again. ' You, Monsieur Vicq d'Azyr, will 
not open your own veins, but you will have them opened six 
times in one day, in an attack of the gout, in order to be sure 
of your fate, and you will die in the night. You, Monsieur de 
Nicolai, will die on the scaffold ; you, Monsieur Bailly, on the 
scaffold ; you, Monsieur de Malesherbes, on the scaffold.' ' Ah! 
Heaven be thanked,' said Boucher, ' this gentleman, it seems, 
only wants the Academicians ; he has made a; great slaughter. 
And myself, for mercy's sake?' * You ? you also will die on the 
scaffold.' * Oh, he has made a bet ; he has sworn to exterminate 
all of us.' 'No, it is not I who have sworn.' 'But shall we 
then be conquered by Tartars and Turks ?' ' No, not at all. 
I have already told you, you will be governed by philosophy and 
reason alone. Those who will thus treat you will all be philoso- 
phers ; will have at the time on their tongues the same phrases 
that you have uttered during the last hour ; will repeat all your 
maxims, and, like you, will recite the verses of Diderot and La 
Pucelle.' 

" Everybody was whispering : * You see he is mad, for he 
was perfectly serious. It is easy to see that he is joking, and he 
always introduces the marvellous into his jests.' ' Yes,' replied 
Chamfort, ' but his marvellous is not gay ; it savors too much 
of the gallows. But when is all this to happen ?' ' Six years 
will not have passed before all that I say will be accomplished.' 
' You talk of miracles (and now it was I who spoke), and do I 
go for nothing?' 'You will then be a miracle no less wonder- 
ful, for you will be a Christian.' At this there were many ex- 
clamations of surprise. ' Ah !' said Chamfort ; ' I am relieved ; 
if we shall only perish when La Harpe becomes a Christian, we 
shall be immortal.' ' As for us,' then, said Madame la Duchesse 
de Grammont, ' women are very happy, to rank for nothing in 
revolutions ; when I say for nothing, I do not mean to say that 
we do not meddle a little; but our sex is exempt.' ' Your sex, 
Madame, will not save you, this time ; meddle how you will, you 
will all be treated as men without the least difference.' 'But 
what do you mean, Monsieur Cazotte ? You are preaching to 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 241 

us the end of the world.' 'I know nothing about that; but 
what I do know, Duchess, is, that you will be taken to the 
scaffold; you, and many other ladies with you, in the execu- 
tioner's cart, with your hands tied behind your back.' ' Ah ! I 
hope that in that case I shall at least have a carriage hung with 
black.' 'No, Madame ; ladies of higher rank than yourself will, 
like you, go in a cart, with their hands bound behind them.' 
' Of higher rank ! what ! princesses of the blood V ' Of still 
higher rank. 5 At this the company began to be agitated, and 
the brow of the host grew dark ! All began to feel that the 
joke grew serious. In order to dispel the cloud, Madame de 
Grammont, instead of noticing this reply, said, in a lively tone, 
' You see, he will not even let me have a confessor.' 'No, Ma- 
dame, neither you nor any one else will have one. The last of 
the condemned who will have one, as a special favor, will be' — 
he hesitated. ' Well, who is the happy mortal that will enjoy 
this privilege V ' It is the last that will remain to him ; it will 
be the King of France.' 

" The master of the house hurriedly arose, and all was confu- 
sion. Approaching M. Cazotte, he said to him impressively : 
6 My dear Monsieur Cazotte, we have had enough of this mourn- 
ful farce. You carry it too far, and will not only compromise 
yourself, but the whole company.' Cazotte made no reply, but 
prepared to depart ; when Madame de Grammont, who was 
always merry, turned towards him and said : ' Sir Prophet, you 
have told us all our good fortunes, but you have said nothing of 
your own.' He mused for some time with his eyes cast down. 
' Madame, have you read The Siege of Jerusalem, by Josephus ?' 
1 Oh, certainly; who has not? But tell me, as though I had not 
read it.' ' Well, Madame, during the siege, there was a man, 
who, for seven days and nights, walked the ramparts incessantly 
in the sight of besieged and besiegers, shouting out in a sad and 
loud voice: 'Woe to Jerusalem!' and on the seventh day he 
cried, ' Woe to Jerusalem ! Woe to myself !' at which moment 
an enormous stone, cast by the enemy's machines, struck him and 
crushed him to death.' 

" On saying this, Cazotte bowed and retired." 
The phenomena of second sight, the belief in which is so pre- 
valent in Scotland and in some other countries, belongs to pre- 
vision. It is true that philosophy and physiology agree in 
16 



242 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

rejecting this idea; but the evidence of many sensible men in 
its favor seems to justify a closer examination of the subject. 

We are far from placing implicit faith in all that we have heard 
related bearing upon these phenomena; we will give the follow- 
ing case only, which Ferriar, Hibbert, and Abercrombie have 
considered in diiferent aspects : — 

Case CIII. " An officer of the English army, connected with 
my family,'' says Ferriar, "was quartered, towards the middle 
of the last century, in the neighborhood of a Scotch gentleman 
who was gifted with second sight. One day, when the officer, 
who had made his acquaintance, was reading a play to the la- 
dies, the host, who was pacing the floor, suddenly stopped, and 
appeared like one inspired. He rang the bell, and ordered the 
servant to saddle a horse, and ride immediately to a neighboring 
castle, and ask after the health of the lady, and, if the reply 
was satisfactory, to go on to another house that he named, and 
inquire after a lady there. 

" The officer closed the book, and entreated his host to explain 
these sudden orders, which he attributed to second sight. He 
hesitated, but finally owned that the door had opened and ad- 
mitted a little woman without a head, whose figure resembled 
the two ladies to whom he had sent. He added that the appa- 
rition was a sign of the sudden death of some person of his 
acquaintance. 

" The servant returned some hours afterwards with the inform- 
ation that one of these ladies had died suddenly of apoplexy 
at the moment of the apparition. 

" On another occasion, during a stormy night, it happened that 
the gentleman was sick in bed, and the officer reading to him ; 
the fishing-boat was out at sea. The old gentleman, after ex- 
hibiting several times much uneasiness for his people, cried out: 
6 The boat is lost!' 'How do you know it?' inquired the Co- 
lonel. 'I see,' said the invalid, 'two boatmen, who carry a 
third drowned; they stream with water, and now place him 
close beside your chair.' At night, the fishermen returned with 
the dead body of their comrade.''* 

Ferriar justly attributes this vision to hallucinations ; accord- 
ing to Abercrombie, it was the reminiscence of a forgotten 

* Ferriar, op. cit. p. 67. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 243 

dream. We think that it should be classed with the hallucina- 
tions experienced during ecstasy. We must also class the ecsta- 
tic visions of cold countries with hallucinations, as also the cases 
of second sight common to the Laplanders, Samoi&des, Ostiaks, 
and Kamtschatdales. Hibbert has given many curious cases.* 

All phenomena that depart from common laws should be sub- 
jected to severe examination, and rejected when they do not 
present evidences of truth ; but when their occurrence is gua- 
ranteed by men of intelligence and integrity, whose morality is 
unquestioned, then skepticism is no longer possible; the difficulty 
lies only in their correct interpretation. There are doubtless a 
great number of cases of prevision which may be explained by 
the hallucinations of ecstasy ; but there are some, also, which 
appear to belong to a different order of things ; such is the ac- 
count related by Josephus. There is, therefore, developed, in 
a manner unknown to us, a greater activity of the faculty of 
perception, just as we see, in certain diseases, the senses acquire 
an extraordinary delicacy on the approach of death, when the 
sick person astonishes those about him by the elevation of his 
thoughts, and the sudden lucidity of a mind which has been 
obscured during many long years. f 

"Nothing is more surprising," observes Arete'e, " than the 
observations sometimes made by patients, in the midst of their 
paroxysms, the propositions they advance, and the objects they 
behold. Their senses are exalted ; their minds possess great 
subtlety, and an extraordinary power of penetrating into futurity. 
At first, they commence by presaging their own death ; they 
then predict the future of those persons who may be present ; 
and then their spirits are released from the coarse covering of 
clay. This event fills all who witness it with admiration. "J 

The same author observes : "It is interesting to listen to the 
occasional sayings and soliloquies of patients on the approach 
of an attack of apoplexy. All their senses seem healthy and 

* History of Lapland, written by John Scheffer, Professor of Law at 
Upsal, in Sweden. English Translation, published A. D. 1704. 

f Brierre de Boismont, Du Retour de la Raison chez les Alienes Mour- 
ants ; Memoire inedit. Gazette des Hopitaux, 1844 [Annal. M<?d. Psych.), 
torn. ii. 2d serie, p. 531. 

% Aretee de Cappadoce, De signis et causis oculorum morborum, lib. 
ii. cap. v. 



244 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

perfect, and they appear to have acquired the power of pro- 
phecy. The first object of their thoughts is the fact that they 
are about to leave the world ; they then announce the future by 
the present, and, the event justifying their predictions, they are 
looked upon as real prophets. I had one who predicted his 
death six days before the event took place."* 

We will only extract one very curious passage from Cabanis : 
"I think it here necessary," says that physician, "to refer 
particularly to those singular acute maladies in which in- 
tellectual faculties suddenly become developed that have not 
previously existed. It is also observed, that in some spas- 
modic and ecstatic diseases, the organs of sense become 
susceptible of receiving impressions which were not perceptible 
in a normal state, and which may even be characterized as 
unnatural. I have frequently noticed the most singular effects 
arising from this susceptibility of sensation in women who would 
doubtless have distinguished themselves as excellent Pytho- 
nesses. 

Some of these patients see the most microscopic objects with 
the naked eye ; others see so clearly in the dark, as to move in 
perfect security. There are others, again, who follow persons by 
their scent, like a dog, and can distinguish such things as they 
have used or even only touched. 

"I have seen some whose taste has acquired a peculiar deli- 
cacy, and who would demand or choose aliment and even reme- 
dies that would be really serviceable to them, with a sagacity 
ordinarily observable only in animals. Some have the power of 
looking within themselves during their paroxysms, and announc- 
ing the approach of certain crises, the occurrence of which soon 
proves the justness of their sensations ; or they notice other 
organic modifications attested by the state of the pulse and 
other still more certain signs, "f 

Is it a weakness to acknowledge that a number of phenomena 
pass in the profoundness of thought, which will forever remain 
unexplained ? Had Dr. Charpignon read this paragraph, he 
would not have said, in pages 158 and 350, in his PJiysiologie du 

* Bordeu, Recherches sur les Maladies chroniques, t. p. 325, et suiv. 
Edit, de Tan. ix. 

f Cabanis 7e Memoire De ^Influence des Maladies sur la Formation des 
idees et des affections morales. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 245 

Magnetism, that I explain all cases of second sight by halluci- 
nation. My opinions on presentiments, foresight, apparitions, 
and the books of the saints, formally contradict this theory.* 

Somnambulism. — The consideration of hallucinations in 
ecstasy and prevision, brings us naturally to speak of those 
observable in somnambulism. Natural somnambulism has many 
points of affinity with dreams, and really appears to differ from 
them only in the degree wherewith the bodily functions are 
affected. The mind, as in dreams, is fixed upon certain impres- 
sions, which it takes for so many real and actual external sensa- 
tions ; but the organs are more obedient to the mandates of the 
will, so that the individual speaks and acts under the influence 
of these erroneous conceptions. 

" We must attribute," says Richard, " all that is inexplicable 
in somnambulism to the force of imagination, which presents 
images to the somnambulist with the same definiteness that they 
are presented in dreams. Undeniably, in dreams, we see objects 
as clearly as though it were bright day, because the light which 
has conveyed the illuminated objects to the brain, impresses 
them there. f 

Somnambulism, as in other nervous conditions of which we 
have treated, is favorable to the production of hallucinations. 

Case CIV. A highly respectable man, who had long been in 
command of a large merchant ship, related the following to Sir 
Walter Scott, which occurred whilst he was in the Tagus. One 
of his crew was assassinated by a Portuguese, and it was rumored 
that the ghost of the deceased haunted the ship. Sailors are 
proverbially superstitious ; and, in this instance, they exhibited 
much repugnance to staying on board. In fact, it seemed pro- 
bable that they would desert rather than return to England with 
a ghost as passenger. It became, therefore, necessary for Cap- 
tain S. to sift the matter ; he discovered that, although they all 
pretended to have seen lights, and to have heard noises, the 
whole story was founded on the statement of one of his lieuten- 
ants, an Irishman and a Catholic; but a cool, honest, and sensible 
man, and whom the captain had no reason to suspect of wilfully 
deceiving him. 

* J. Charpignon, Physiologie Medecine et Metaphysique du Magnetisme. 
1 vol. in 8, Paris 1848. 
f Richard, Theorie des Songes, 1 vol. in 12, p. 104, Paris, 1754. 



246 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The lieutenant solemnly told Captain S. that the spectre of 
the deceased appeared to him almost nightly, obliged him to 
abandon whatever he was engaged in, and, as he expressed him- 
self, burnt him by a slow fire. 

He related this with every demonstration of horror, proving 
the reality of his distress and his fear. The captain, without 
pursuing the subject, resolved to watch, during the night, the 
actions of this man. 

When the bells sounded midnight, the sleeper suddenly rose, 
with a wild and distressed look, lighted a candle, and walked to 
the kitchen ; he there sat down, and, with eyes wide open, ap- 
peared to be staring at some terrible object, from which, how- 
ever, he could not remove his gaze. At the end of some seconds 
he rose, took a pot, which he filled with water, and, talking to 
himself in a low tone, mixed salt in it, and sprinkled it over the 
kitchen. He then heaved a deep sigh, like a man relieved of a 
heavy oppression, and, returning to his hammock, slept peace- 
fully. On the following morning he related to the captain the 
exact history of the apparition, adding that the ghost had taken 
him to the kitchen ; but that, having fortunately procured, he 
did not know how, some holy water, he had succeeded in ridding 
himself of his visitor. 

The captain told him all that had actually passed in the night, 
adding details that proved him to have been the dupe of his 
imagination. He acknowledged the justness of the captain's 
reasonings, and, as often happens in cases where the illusion has 
been pointed out, the dream returned no more.* 

In ordinary cases, the affection occurs during the night ; but 
it is not very uncommon to observe, through the day, a state 
which bears some analogy to somnambulism, and in which is 
particularly remarked an indifference to external objects. Under 
some circumstances, these attacks have occurred suddenly ; and, 
under others, they have been preceded by a noise or confusion 
in the head. The individuals then become more or less absent ; 
they have no longer any connection with exterior objects, or 
have but a confused idea of them. They may frequently con- 
verse in a continued and intelligible manner, but the actual 
impress of the mind is reflected in their discourse. In some 

* Walter Scott, op. cit. p. 216. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 247 

cases they recite long poems, often with more correctness than 
they "would do in their waking hours. They sometimes hold 
discourse with imaginary beings, relate circumstances or conver- 
sations that happened long back, and which they might be sup- 
posed to have forgotten ; so>me have been heard to sing much 
better than in their natural state, and authentic examples are 
cited of persons in that state who have spoken correctly in a 
language which they knew but imperfectly. 

Case CV. "Some years ago," says Abercrombie, "I at- 
tended a young lady subject to an affection of this character, 
which always took place during the day, and which lasted from 
ten minutes to one hour. Without any premonitory symptoms, 
her body became motionless, her eyes open, fixed, and she was 
completely insensible, and quite unconscious of what was pass- 
ing around her. She was frequently attacked whilst playing on 
the piano ; she continued to play with perfect correctness, but 
without getting beyond a certain point. She was, on one occa- 
sion attacked just as she was about to begin a new piece. Dur- 
ing the paroxysm, she repeated it perfectly five or six times ; 
but on recovering, could not play it without study."* 

This appears to us to have been a union of catalepsy, epilepsy, 
and ecstasy. 

The hallucinations of somnambulism may give rise to the most 
singular actions, and to resolutions involving the gravest respon- 
sibility, which might result in unhappy consequences to the ac- 
tors if these facts were not known. 

Case CVI. Dom. Duhaget was of a good family in Gascony, 
and had distinguished himself in service ; he had been a cap- 
tain in the infantry for twenty years ; and was a chevalier of 
St. Louis. I never knew any one possessing more amiability or 
piety. 

" We had," he related, " a friar at , where I was prior 

before I came to Pierre Chatel, of a melancholy disposition and 
a gloomy character, who was known as a somnambulist. 

" Sometimes, during the paroxysms, he would leave his cell, 
and re-enter it alone ; at others, he would lose himself, and have 
to be brought back. His case had been treated, and as the 
returns were very rare, it had ceased to attract attention. 

* Abercrombie, op. cit. pp. 308 and 328. 



248 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

" One night, I was sitting up beyond my usual hour for re- 
tiring. I was engaged in looking over some papers in my desk, 
when I heard the door open and saw the friar enter in a com- 
plete state of somnambulism. His eyes were open, but fixed ; 
he had on only the garment in which he slept, and held a large 
knife in his hand. He went straight to my bed; appeared to 
satisfy himself by feeling, that I was really there ; after which, 
he struck three heavy blows so powerfully, that the blade, after 
piercing the clothes, entered deep into the mattress, or rather 
the mat, which I used instead. When he first entered, his brow 
was frowning and the muscles of his face contracted. Having 
struck, he turned around, and I observed that instead of the 
frowning and distorted features, his countenance was overspread 
with an air of great satisfaction. The light from two lamps 
that were on my desk had no effect on his eyes ; he returned as 
he came, opening and shutting quietly the two doors that led to 
my cell ; and I was soon satisfied that he had gone directly and 
quietly to his own. 

" You may imagine," continued the prior, " my state of mind, 
during this terrible apparition. I shuddered with horror at the 
danger from which I had escaped, and so great was my emotion 
that I could not close an eye the whole night. 

" The next day, I summoned the somnambulist, and quietly 
asked him of what he had dreamed the preceding night. At 
this question he was agitated. ' Father,' replied he, ' I had so 
strange a dream that I do not like to tell you of it ; it is, perhaps, 
the work of the evil one, and' — 'I command it,' replied I; 'a 
dream is always involuntary, and is but an illusion.' 'Father,' 
said he, ' I was hardly asleep before I dreamed that you had 
killed my mother ; that her bleeding shade appeared and de- 
manded vengeance ; at this sight, I was so enraged that I flew 
like a madman to your apartment and stabbed you. Soon after- 
wards I awoke, bathed in perspiration. I hated myself for the 
outrage, and then blessed God that so great a crime had not 
been committed.' ' The deed was nearer consummation than 
you are aware of,' said I to him, with a calm and serious air. 

" I then related what had occurred, and showed him the evi- 
dence of the blows which he thought were dealt upon me. 

" Upon this, he threw himself at my feet in tears, groaning 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 249 

over the misfortune which had so nearly happened, and im- 
ploring such penance as I thought fit to inflict upon him. 

"No, no," I cried; "I shall not punish you for an involun- 
tary act ; but henceforth I dispense with your services during 
the night, and advise you that I shall have your cell locked on 
the outside after the evening repast, and opened only in time for 
you to attend mass at daybreak." 

If, under these circumstances, the prior, who escaped by a 
miracle, had been killed, the sleep-walking friar would not have 
been punished, as it would have been an involuntary murder on 
his part.* 

The Neapolitan journals lately related a case in which a man, 
in a state of somnambulism, dreaming that his wife, then by his 
side, was unfaithful, wounded her dangerously with a poniard, 
which he always carried about him. M. Maglietta, a barrister, 
published an opinion, in which he contended that blows and 
wounds inflicted by a man asleep, and in a state of somnambulism, 
were not punishable.f 

Lorry has described two very interesting cases which he wit- 
nessed. A woman, in a state resembling somnambulism, was in 
the habit of conversing loudly with absent persons whom she 
thought she saw. She was so insensible to external impressions, 
that she could be pinched and pricked without manifesting the 
slightest pain. In this state she perceived distinctly the objects 
with which she was in connection. Her arms and fingers pre- 
served their position, until an involuntary movement of the 
members gave them another direction. After the paroxysm, 
she had no recollection of what had passed. 

The other case was that of a woman who was irregular. 
During the continuance of this state, she was in the habit of 
conversing with a person whom she appeared distinctly to see. 
Her discourse always dwelt on the thought that had preoccupied 
her mind. In this state, she was unconscious of the presence of 
any one. The mother of this woman having died suddenly, the 
daughter, during her paroxysms, continued to talk with her as 
though she were living. 

* Brillat Savarin, Physiologie de gout, 2d edit. t. i. p. 6, Paris, 1828. 
f Union Medicale, 16 December, 1851. 



250 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The most remarkable peculiarity of these cases is the pro- 
found insensibility of the individuals to outward impressions, 
excepting to those connected with their ideas, thoughts, and 
sentiments ; they are instances of striking analogy with animal 
somnambulism. Another characteristic of this affection is the 
instantaneous change which occurs in thought and consciousness. 
The affection is also characterized by the ecstatic disposition of 
the mind, by the total suspension of actual ideas, which con- 
tinues for an indefinite period, and in the equally sudden and 
remarkable return of the mind to the normal state on the termi- 
mination of the paroxysm. 

I shall conclude this series of observations with a case bor- 
rowed from Dr. Dyce, of Aberdeen ; it possesses much interest, 
and resembles, in some respects, that of Negretti, related by 
Muratori, but appears decisive on the question whether or not 
somnambulism carries with it the suspension of the senses, and 
their transposition to the nervous system of physical life. 

Case CVIL Dyce speaks of a young girl, who was of delicate 
health until she attained womanhood. The first symptom 
which appeared was great drowsiness, soon followed by a per- 
petual desire to talk. She repeated what had passed during 
the day, and sang both sacred and profane melodies. Every 
night, in her sleep, she imagined herself going to Epsom Races, 
mounted a kitchen stool, and ran round the room, imitating the 
sounds used by a person riding. She replied without waking to 
any questions that were asked her. The returns of this state 
were frequent, and at irregular intervals. She dressed the 
children in her sleep, and at one time she set the table for 
breakfast, her eyes remaining closed. 

When taken to church, she understood the sermon, and 
seemed much affected when the preacher spoke of three young 
persons who had been executed, and of their progress in crime. 
On being questioned, when the paroxysm was over, and having 
returned home, she denied having been to church ; but in the 
subsequent recurrence of the somnambulic state, she repeated 
the text and the substance of the discourse. 

Artificial Somnambulism. — The cases to which we have just 
directed attention, lead us to those relating to artificial somnam- 
bulism. We must not confound these two conditions, although 
they present certain analogies ; thus, the first usually occurs 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 251 

without any perceptible cause, and is not under the influence of 
the will. The somnambulist appears to use but one sense,* and 
his attention is excited by only one order of facts, those with 
which his mind is occupied; his thoughts have but one tendency, 
and he is conscious of nothing that does not bear some relation 
to this peculiar direction of the mind. The second state suc- 
ceeds magnetism ; it is determined by the will of the operator. 
Almost always, however, the thoughts and attention of the per- 
son are free. 

Artificial somnambulism offers several curious phenomena. 
We have already spoken of some of them on the occasion of 
dreams and ecstasy ; here, however, we will confine ourselves 
to the study of somnambulism in its relation to hallucination. 
Those who maintain that we explain this singular state by hallu- 
cination, are in error ; it is one thing to affirm that it is pro- 
duced in the magnetic sleep of hallucinations, and another to 
say that somnambulism is but a hallucination. It must not, 
however, be lost sight of, that this phenomenon may be physio- 
logical, and yet be manifested in reverie, dreams, and other 
dispositions of the mind which have never been seriously ranked 
with insanity. 

Amongst the cases of artificial somnambulism, we will select 
those whose authenticity cannot be questioned. 

Case CVIII. Madame Plantin, about 61 years of age, con- 
sulted, in the month of June, 1828, a somnambulist, who was 
introduced to her by Dr. Chapelain, and by whom she was in- 
formed that a tumor would form in her right breast, and threaten 
to become cancerous. The invalid passed the summer in the 
country, but attended very carelessly to the regimen prescribed. 
Towards the end of September she returned to see Dr. Chape- 
lain, and confessed that the tumor was considerably increased. 
He began to magnetize her on the 23d October following, and 

* In somnambulism, hearing is frequently preserved, questions are 
heard and replied to as in waking. Touch is also frequently perfect; and 
even in some cases acquires an extraordinary delicacy. This is the sense 
which presides, as it were, over all the actions of somnambulists. Sauvages 
of Montpellier has described two sick persons in the hospital as natural 
somnambulists, and also clairvoyants ; his account is found in the MS- 
moires de VAcademie des Sciences (Szaf kowski, Recherches sur les Halluci- 
nations, 1849, p. 155). 



252 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

the sleep was induced several days afterwards ; but absolute 
somnambulism was never very perfect in her. The means em- 
ployed retarded without curing the disease. Finally, the breast 
gathered, and the doctor thought that the only hope was to have 
it removed. M. Jules Cloquet, a very skilful surgeon, was of 
the same opinion; it remained to gain the consent of the invalid, 
in which Dr. Chapelain, by his influence over her, succeeded. 
He used the whole power of his will to produce insensibility of 
the part, and, when he thought he had succeeded, he pinched 
the end of the breast violently with his nails without causing 
pain. The invalid was ignorant of the day fixed for the opera- 
tion ; it was the 12th of April, 1829. Dr. Chapelain magnetized 
her, and powerfully magnetized the part on which they were 
about to operate. He also magnetized the operator and his 
assistant, who doubted not that Madame Plantin would awake 
at the first incision ; but their astonishment was extreme at her 
profound insensibility. " It appeared to me," said Dr. Cloquet, 
" that we were cutting a corpse." I will subjoin the report of 
this case, transmitted to the surgical department of the Royal 
Academy of Medicine :* — 

" On the day fixed for the operation, M. Cloquet, on his arri- 
val at half-past 10, found the invalid dressed and seated in her 
arm-chair in the attitude of a person in a quiet natural sleep. 
She had been about an hour before to mass, which she ha- 
bitually attended at that hour, and M. Chapelain magnetized 
her on her return. She spoke very calmly of the operation she 
was about to undergo. Everything being prepared, she undressed 
and seated herself in a chair. 

" Dr. Chapelain supported her right arm, the left was allowed 
to lie at her side. M. Pailloux, house-student of the Hospital 
of St. Louis, had the care of giving the instruments and making 
the ligatures. 

" A first incision, beginning near the hollow of the arm-pit, 
was directed above the tumor towards the inner face of the 
breast. The second, commencing at the same spot, cut round 
beneath the tumor and joined the first ; the engorged glands 
were carefully dissected on account of their nearness to the axil- 

* See the Archives generates de Medecine, t. xx. p. 131, et seq., May, 
1829. 



253 

lary artery, and the tumor was extracted. The operation lasted 
from ten to twelve minutes. During all this time the patient 
conversed tranquilly with the operator ; there was no change in 
the position of the limbs or features, nor in the respiration or 
the voice ; the pulsations also were natural. She continued in 
the same automatic state of ease and impassibility in which M. 
Cloquet found her on his arrival. There was no cause for re- 
straint ; it was simply requisite to support her. A ligature 
was applied to the thoracic lateral artery, divided during the 
extraction of the glands. It is worthy of remark that, when 
the surgeon washed the skin in the neighborhood of the wound, 
with a sponge dipped in warm water, the patient manifested 
sensations resembling those produced by tickling, and said 
quickly, several times, ' Ah ! stop ; don't tickle me.' 

" The wound being dressed with adhesive plaster, the patient 
was put in bed, still in a state of somnambulism, in which she 
was allowed to remain for forty-eight hours.* 

" This lady had a daughter married to M. Lagandre' ; unfor- 
tunately she was in the country, and could not be in Paris for 
some days after the operation. Madame Lagandre' was a som- 
nambulist, and exhibited remarkable clearness of perception. 

" M. Cloquet proposed to Dr. Chapelain to magnetize Ma- 
dame Lagandre'. To this he assented, and after placing her in 
the magnetic state, he made many inquiries respecting Madame 
Plantin. Her replies were as follows : ' My mother is very 
much reduced ; she no longer lives but by magnetism, which 
sustains her artificially; she has no life in her.' 'Do you think 
that your mother's life can be saved?' 'No ; she will die to- 
morrow morning early, without agony or suffering.' l What are 
the diseased parts?' 'The left lung is shrunk, folded upon 
itself; it is surrounded by a skin-like membrane, and is floating 
in water. But it is chiefly there,' said the somnambulist, point- 
ing to the inferior angle of the scapula, ' that my mother suffers. 
The right lung no longer breathes ; it is dead ; the left lung 
is healthy ; it is by that my mother lives. There is a little 
water in the pericardium.' 'What is the condition of the 

* Madame Plantin died fifteen or sixteen days after the operation, but 
from causes unconnected with it; she was opened, and the peculiarities of 
the autopsy were found to be remarkable. 



254 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

organs of the abdomen?' ' The stomach and intestines are 
healthy ; the liver is white and decolored on the surface.' 

" M. Chapelain powerfully magnetized the patient several 
times during Monday, and hardly succeeded in making her 
sleep. When he returned on Tuesday morning, about seven 
o'clock, she had just expired. The two physicians were desirous 
of verifying the descriptions of the somnambulist as to the 
interior condition of the body ; and obtained the consent of the 
family to a post-mortem examination. M. Moreau, secretary of 
the surgical department of the Academy of Medicine, and Dr. 
Drousart, were requested to be present as witnesses, and it was 
determined on for the next day. It was conducted by M. Clo- 
Cjuet and M. Pailloux, his assistant, and Dr. Chapelain. The 
latter put Madame Lagandre' into the magnetic sleep a little 
before the hour fixed on. I will not describe the scene of ten- 
derness and filial piety which took place, during which the 
somnambulist bathed with tears the inanimate body of her 
mother. 

" Dr. Chapelain hastened to calm her. The physicians desired 
to hear from her own lips what she had described as having seen 
within the body of her mother, and the somnambulist repeated, 
in a firm voice, and without hesitation, what she had already 
related to MM. Cloquet and Chapelain. She was then led by 
the latter into the room adjoining that in which the autopsy was 
to take place, and the door was carefully closed. Madame 
Lagandre' continued in a state of somnambulism, and notwith- 
standing the barrier that separated her from those gentlemen, 
she followed the knife in the hands of the operator, and observed 
to those near to her: l Why do they make an incision in the 
middle of the chest when the disease is on the right side?' 

"The indications of the somnambulist were found correct, and 
the description of the autopsy was written by Dr. Drousart, as 
follows : — 

" Description of the post-mortem examination of the body of 
Madame Plantin, on Tuesday, 29th April, 1829 : — 

"Exterior. — Yellowish paleness over the body; very thin ; 
abdomen large. The wound three quarters healed ; the surface 
granulated, and flesh healthy ; the edges sunken, and covered 
with a newly formed cicatrix. 

" Interior. — On opening the chest, the cavity of the right 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 255 

pleura was discovered to be filled with a thick serositv, the 
quantity of which might be about two pints; the pulmonary and 
costal portions of that membrane are covered with soft layers 
of exudations, more abundant in the posterior portion of the 
cavity than in the anterior. The lung strongly drawn back on 
itself; the incisions made on the posterior edge, and principal- 
ly on the superior lobe, exhibit the presence of pneumonia, 
whence issues a sero-purulent liquid, whitish in some places, and 
grayish in others. Several points of the anterior edge and the 
inferior lobe are yet permeable to air, and crackling ; the peri- 
cardium contains about three or four ounces of limpid serosity. 
The posterior face of the heart is slightly red, and presents 
several small portions of a skinny exudation. Besides this, this 
organ has nothing remarkable. 

"The liver is of ordinary size; the superior face is covered, 
towards the centre, with whitish spots which do not spread be- 
yond the surface of the organ; the biliary gall-bladder is with- 
ered, and of a whitish color ; it is filled with biliary calculi, and 
contains no bile. 

"The other organs have not been examined." 

Here follow the signatures.* The witnesses are all living, 
and hold a high rank in the medical world. Their communica- 
tion has been interpreted in various ways, but no one has ever 
doubted their veracity. 

The two following cases have been reported by M. Chardel, 
Counsellor in the Court of Cassation, who received them from 
ocular witnesses, persons of respectability and integrity : — 

Case CIX. A magistrate, and counsellor in a royal court, 
related to me the following anecdote : His wife had an attendant 
who was in very delicate health. She magnetized her, and put 
her into a state of somnambulism. It was done privately, as 
her charitable intentions would not have secured her from ridi- 
cule. The lady was assisted by her husband. On one occasion 
when the magnetic treatment had been accompanied with severe 
pain, the somnambulist asked for some old wine ; the husband 
took a light and went below for the purpose of obtaining it. He 
descended the first flight of stairs without accident, but the 

* Chardel, Psychologie physiologique, Paris, 1844, p. 260, et seq., and 
pp. 277, 278, et seq. 



256 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

cellar was deep under ground, and the steps were moist; he 
slipped half way down, and fell back without being hurt or even 
extinguishing the light. Having procured the wine, he returned, 
when he found his wife acquainted with his fall and all its de- 
tails; the somnambulist had related them as they occurred.* 

Case CX. I knew the wife of a colonel in the cavalry, who, 
being magnetized by her husband, became a somnambulist ; 
during the course of treatment, an indisposition obliged him to 
call to his assistance an officer of his regiment. Some time after, 
during a magnetic sitting, the husband, having put his wife into 
a state of somnambulism, desired her to give him information of 
that officer: "Ah! the unhappy man!" cried she; "I see 

him; he is at ; he is on the point of killing himself; now 

he points the pistol; run quickly." The place indicated was a 
league distant ; a horseman mounted in all haste, but when he 
arrived, the suicide was consummated.*)" 

We have confined ourselves to these three cases ; they are 
sufficient to establish the fact that persons and objects, in con- 
nection with the person magnetized, can be seen by him under 
their real forms ; a phenomenon is then produced similar to that 
we have seen in reverie, dreams, ecstasies, and in cases of pre- 
vision and presentiment ; in a word, in all cases of hallucina- 
tions compatible with reason. There are, doubtless, other pecu- 
liarities which seem to exceed natural boundaries ; but we would 
here be somewhat reserved in the expression of our opinion ; 
and whilst admitting the plausibility of what has been written by 
many of our brethren on the power of the imagination, amongst 
others by Demangeon,f we at the same time do not hesitate 
to express a belief that there is still something beyond, and that 
the mind must necessarily exercise a considerable influence on 
the body, for the very simple reason, that this, in its turn, can 
develop extraordinary properties. Huygens speaks of a priso- 
ner at Anvers, who could read written characters at a distance, 
where they could be seen by no one else. At orte of the last 
sittings of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, M. 

* Chardel, Psychologie physiologique, Paris, 1844, p. 290. 
f Chardel, op. cit. Paris, 1844, p. 292. 

f J. B. Demange6n, De Flmagination, 2d edition, p. 39, ch. II. 1 vol. in 
8vo., Paris, 1829. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 257 

Vincent communicated a paper, full of interest respecting the 
son of Doctor Paludilhe, of Montpellier, a young child of seven 
years old, in whom the development of the musical faculty had 
reached such an extraordinary height, that he may be considered 
as a living sonometer ; moreover, he possesses the singular and 
rare faculty of distinguishing the melodious character of a 
spoken discourse, firstly, according to the nature, more or less 
musical, of the voices of the individuals ; secondly, according to 
the character, more or less passionate, of the discourse itself.* 

We may then consider authentic cases of clairvoyance, of pre- 
vision, and of second sight, recorded in works on magnetism, as 
belonging to the domain of hallucinations ; the thoughts, how- 
ever, are tinted, the ideas imaged, the mind, in a word, is 
clothed in its material envelop. The idea that, during life, the 
phenomenon of clairvoyance should be spread over the surface 
of the body, and above all, should have its seat in the epigas- 
trium, at the ends of the fingers, etc., is not supported by the 
laws of physiology. The senses have ever possessed distinct 
functions ; one can no more take the place of another, than it 
can be supplied by parts that have not the slightest affinity to 
it, either in form, structure, or functions; whilst we can compre- 
hend that, under peculiar circumstances, they may acquire quali- 
ties that fill us with astonishment. The phenomena of clair- 
voyance, prevision, and second sight depend on a sudden illumi- 
nation of the cerebral organ, which calls into activity sensations 
that have hitherto lain dormant. Here occurs what may be no- 
ticed in natural somnambulism, under the influence of an un- 
known cause. The individual distinctly sees in his brain, the 
stairs, the apartments, and the places through which he walks ; 
he there reads the characters of the books which lie before him, 
and of letters which he writes. It is an internal mirror, on 
which all his impressions are received, and which serves as a 
guide to his conduct ; but in this case, the action is based on 
recollections and reminiscences ; for should the individual get 
into a strange place, he totters and stumbles, even to injuring 
himself. In artificial somnambulism, the perceptions are clearer, 
better defined, indicate a more perfect isolation and a greater 
activity in the faculties. How does this happen ? We know 

* Debats, 10th August, 1851. 

17 



258 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

not. Do we know any better what passes in the thousand com- 
binations of thought, in the action of the will? Alas, no. 
These are facts that must be admitted ; but the manner of their 
operation will probably be hidden from us forever. 

We read in the records of animal magnetism, of a blind lady, 
who, in her sleep, admirably described the beauties of nature. 
Having recovered her sight, she owned that nature, during sleep, 
was much more beautiful than she found it on awaking. 

Recapitulation. — Ecstasy being the result of the highest 
degree of exaltation of mind, is eminently favorable to the pro- 
duction of hallucinations, but even on that account it cannot be 
regarded as a natural state. 

The extreme concentration of thought on a single idea, which 
is the peculiar character of ecstasy, is liable to produce a painful 
state of body. 

Ecstasy frequently manifests itself in contemplative minds ; 
but it is also observed in religious persons of very ordinary in- 
tellect. 

All epochs of profound beliefs, of fanaticism, or of great 
hopes or fears, are favorable to the development of ecstasy. 

The possessed of former ages were evidently ecstatics. 

The phenomenon of ecstasy existed in the convulsed. 

The inspired of different sects exhibited ecstasy in a high 
degree. 

Ecstasy may be manifested without any loss of reason ; it is 
then termed physiological; if it be combined with a disordered 
mind, it is termed morbid ecstasy. 

It is frequently difficult to fix the line of demarcation between 
these two kinds. 

This distinction allows of two separate classes of ecstatic hal- 
lucinists. 

Ecstasy is not confined to those of riper years ; it has been 
seen in children. 

Ecstasy may show itself in cataleptic hysteria, and mystic 
forms, and in mania and monomania. 

There is no age in which cases of ecstasy have not occurred, 
and, according to the strength and predominance of the ideas, 
it has taken the form of an epidemic. 

A certain number of nervous conditions, rejected by skepticism, 
because they cannot be explained, such as prevision, clairvoyance, 



HALLUCINATIONS IN ECSTASY, MAGNETISM, SOMNAMBULISM. 259 

second sight, magnetism, and somnambulism, are attached to ecs- 
tasy, of which they are only varieties, and have numerous points 
of affinity with hallucinations. 

We cannot, however, rank all cases of prevision with the 
hallucinations of ecstasy ; there are some which appear to 
spring from an enlarged faculty of perception, a supernatural 
intuition. 

The hallucinations of ecstatics of cold countries, which some 
have classed with cases of second sight, appear evidently due 
to the influence of temperature. The form observable in Lap- 
land depends on the combined effects of ecstasy, alienation, and 
temperature. 

The hallucinations of natural somnambulism present a striking 
analogy to those of dreams ; they differ only in degree and in 
increased energy of the will. 

Imagination then presents images to the somnambulist with as 
much clearness as in dreams. 

The hallucinations of sleep, like those of natural somnambu- 
lism, may incite to acts involving serious responsibilities, and 
leave no doubt that man is then no longer master of his will. 

There is reason to believe that visual magnetic sensations 
are only hallucinations. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

OF -HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE, INFLAMMATORY, ACUTE, CHRONIC, 
AND OTHER MALADIES. 

Of hallucinations and illusions in acute delirium and brain diseases — Congestion, 
arachnites, encephalites, softening of the brain, cerebro-spinal meningitis, 
etc. — Of hallucinations in fever ; effects of fever on the imagination — Hallu- 
cinations in typhoid, typhus, and intermittent fevers — Hallucinations in 
diseases of the digestive and biliary passages — Parenchymatous inflamma- 
tions may be combined with hallucinations and pneumonia ; hallucinations 
after a suppression — Hallucinations in gout, disease of the heart, pellagra, 

-• and chlorosis — Hallucinations in syncope and convalescence — Hallucinations 
from atmospheric influence — Hallucinations may precede disease — Hallucina- 
tions in the last stage of chronic disease — Recapitulation. 

SECT. I.— OF HALLUCINATIONS IN ACUTE DELIRIUM AND DISEASES 
OF THE BRAIN. 

Acute delirium, called by some acute insanity,* was long 
confounded with cerebral inflammations. "We, in accordance 
with M. Lelut, have separated it from this group of diseases, f 
and we are thus conducted, by a natural transition, from nerv- 
ous to inflammatory affections. 

Maniacal excitement, which forms one of the characteristics 
of acute delirium, leads to the supposition that it awakens 
fantastic conceptions and sensorial illusions in the minds of the 
sufferers, and our experience confirms the idea. 

* Le delire aigu ; folie aigue. 

f Lelut, Introduction sur la valeur des alterations de Fencephale dans 
le delire aigu et dans la folie, Paris, 1836. — Brierre de Boismont, Du 
delire aigu qu'on observe dans les etablissements d'alienes (pamphlet 
read in the Royal Academy of Medicine in 1842, inserted in the 11th vol. 
of the Memoires de VAcademie, and honored with a gold medal by the 
Institute). — Art. Delire aigu, bibliotheque des medecines praticiens, t. ix. — 
Art. Delire, in the supplement of the Dictionnaire des Dictionnaires de 
Medecine, 1851, p. 188. — Sandras, Maladies Nerveuses, 1851, t. i. p. 569. 
On a form of disease resembling some advanced stages of mania and 
fever, by Luther V. Bell, M. D., American Journal of Insanity, Oct. 1849. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 261 

Some individuals who are attacked with acute delirium, see 
persons hiding beneath the bed, in a wardrobe, etc. ; point out 
and desire to drive them away ; others think they are sur- 
rounded by frogs and serpents, who try to kill them. Doubt- 
less, the terror, the cries, the inclination to bite, to strike, or to 
throw themselves from a height, which are remarked in a num- 
ber of these persons, are caused by hallucinations of an alarm- 
ing character. This is also observed in maniacs, in whom it is 
not always easy to discover the delusion of the senses. 

The nature of hallucinations is often in affinity, in this deli- 
rium, with the habits, character, and passions of the individual. 
A very religious young lady cried continually, " I am surrounded 
with devils; begone, Satan; sweet Jesus, drive him away !" A 
young student persisted in entreating that the water which sur- 
rounded his bed should be removed ; he saw it gradually mount- 
ing to his breast, and felt almost choked. A Protestant minister, 
who had suffered great reverses of fortune, was seized with acute 
intermittent delirium. During each attack, he saw sinister 
figures, who menaced him with hell, and insulted and tormented 
him. 

Illusions are also equally common in acute delirium. The 
sick take those who surround them for other individuals of their 
acquaintance ; or rather it appears to them as if they were 
transformed. Illusions of taste and smell are also noticed in 
acute delirium. The drinks which are oifered to these patients 
are often rejected with horror, because they pretend that they 
smell of smoke, that they have a bad taste, or that they are 
poison. Others, again, we have seen to whom the drinks had 
the flavor of the most exquisite wines, and who went into a sort 
of ecstasy on tasting them. 

SECT. II.- OF HALLUCINATIONS IN INFLAMMATORY DISEASES, AND 
IN SEVERAL OTHER AFFECTIONS. 

Works on internal pathology contain a multitude of cases 
which allow of no doubt of the existence of hallucinations in 
ephemeral and severe fevers, inflammations of the organs in 
various other diseases, convalescence, abstinence, etc. We have 
no intention to run through the list, but will confine ourselves 
to several examples of hallucinations united with diseases. Con- 



262 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

gestion, or excess of blood, is sometimes accompanied by hallu- 
cinations. Broussais reports the case of a young woman, aged 
19, who, near the term of her pregnancy, experienced giddiness 
whilst at her work, saw flambeaux, a coffin, and a large dog ap- 
proaching to devour her. This woman showed every symptom 
of plethora ; an application of leeches was prescribed ; the means 
were sufficient to dispel the casualties; and the young woman, 
who was a prey to a loquacious delirium of a singularly merry 
character, was quickly restored to reason.* 

Case CXI. A man, in a healthy state of mind, was seated in 
his room. To his great astonishment the door opened, and one 
of his friends entered, who, having walked several times round 
it, stood before him and gazed upon him fixedly. Wishing to 
receive his visitor with politeness, he arose, but had only ad- 
vanced a few steps when the figure vanished. He then knew it 
was a vision. The apparition soon reappeared ; it was accom- 
panied by several more of his friends, who all surrounded him 
with the same fixed look. In a quarter of an hour the assembly 
was so great that the apartment appeared too small to contain 
them. These phantoms followed him into his bedroom, and 
ranged themselves around his bed, so that he had much difficulty 
in getting a few hours' sleep. On his awaking they reappeared, 
and the room was soon as well filled as before. 

This condition continuing throughout the day, he consulted 
his physician, who recollected having bled him a year previously 
for a congestion of the brain. He had also been several times 
distressed by hemorrhoidal tumors. Bleeding by leeches was 
advised ; on the following day, the phantoms were much fewer, 
and also less active. By night, they had entirely disappeared. f 

Several authors have described the existence of hallucinations 
on the approach of apoplexy. "We cannot," says Are'tee, 
" hear without astonishment the remarks sometimes made by 
those who are threatened with apoplexy. All their senses are 
perfect and entire, and their minds seem to have acquired a 
prophetic character. Their first idea is that they are about to 
quit the world ; then they predict the future by the present ; 
and, the event justifying their prediction, they are looked upon 

* Phlegm. Chron. t. ii. p. 421-422. 
f Hibbert, op. cit. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 263 

as real prophets. I saw one who was prophesying his decease 
for six days."* 

Inflammation of the membranes of the brain likewise occasions 
this phenomenon. Messrs. Martinet and Parent Duchatelet have 
numbered 5 cases out of the 102 contained in their work (see 
cases 14, 24, 25). The treatise on Inflammation of tJie Brain 
by Mons. Bouillard (p. 8, 66, and 86), contains some curious 
cases of hallucinations of smell, and illusions of sight and touch. 

Morgagni mentions a man who, working at night in a cess- 
pool attached to a hospital, had an hallucination in which he saw 
a spectre clothed in white. On his death, which quickly super- 
vened, it was discovered that he had a venous congestion and a 
softening of the brain. 

In cerebro -spinal epidemic meningitis,f hallucinations are 
numerous. M. Tourdes, author of a history of this epidemic, 
has mentioned several curious examples. J 

Dr. Alderson, of Halle, has reported an interesting case of 
hallucinations joined to a violent cephalalgia and inflammation 
of the teguments. 

CaseCXII. "Some months ago," says the author, "I attended 
M. R., who had been attacked, during a voyage from America, 
with violent headache. He was relieved by the formation of an 
abscess beneath the teguments of the skull ; his breathing was 
somewhat affected by other tumors, which had formed in the 
throat. He complained of having fatiguing dreams, and even 
of dreaming when awake. A short time afterwards, he told 
me that, for the space of an hour or two, he thought he saw his 
wife and family, although convinced by his reason that they 
were in America. The impression on his mind was so strong, 
and the conversation he had held with his son so circumstantial 
and important, that he could not resist telling it in all its details 
to his friends on the following day. He also desired to be in- 
formed if his wife and family had not arrived from America, 
and whether they were not in the same house. 

* Borden, Recherches theo. sur. les maladies chroniques, p. 326, et seq., 
edit, of the year IX. 

f See the article Meningite Cerebro-Spinale, by M. Boudin in the Sup- 
plement of the Dictionnaire des Dictionnaires de Medecine, 1851, pp. 427 to 
444. 

X Histoire de l'Epid. de Mening. Cereb. Spinale, Strasbourg, 1843. 



264 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

"I was sent for a second time; he quickly perceived that he 
was considered deranged ; when, turning towards me, he in- 
quired if his disease could induce a belief in spectres, appari- 
tions, and figures. 'Until now,' said he, 'I had no faith in all 
the stories of this character.' He knew that he was perfectly 
sane, and his friends also acknowledged him to be so, with 
a mind as strong as it had ever been. 

"Having explained to him the nature and causes of his 
visions, and told him that they would cease with his bodily suffer- 
ings, both he and his friends grew composed. But the phan- 
toms became more and more importunate, until he could not 
make up his mind to retire to rest, because he was immediately 
harassed by the souls of the dead, or visited by persons dis- 
agreeable to him. Having changed his room, the visions ceased 
for some time; but he soon perceived his friends of the new 
world pictured on a piece of polished metal. 

"Designedly occupying myself with a book, I detected him 
mentally conversing with them, and at times evidently imagining 
that I also saw and heard them. When he looked away from 
the polished bar, he talked sensibly on religion, medicine, and 
politics. At length he changed his residence, when the purulent 
matter being discharged, his condition was ameliorated. He is 
now convalescent, and entirely relieved of his phantoms."* 

Fever, by the sanguine cerebral afflux which it produces, or 
of which it is the result by the nervous diseases it occasions, 
plays an important part in the production of hallucinations. It 
is most generally accompanied by wakefulness. When it has 
lasted for some time, the patient, worn out, falls asleep, but he 
is soon wakened up, with horrible dreams that wear all the 
character of reality. The different effects of light and shadow, 
or the arrangement of the draperies, all unite to create in his 
disturbed imagination apparent forms, which, at first, are scarcely 
distinguishable ; but which soon become to him realities, and are 
the preludes to an incoherent and continuous delirium. 

Case CXIII. " I attended," says Abercrombie, " a very intelli- 
gent man, who had been sick for some time with a slight fever. 
Although his reason was unimpaired, he was subject to a fre- 
quent hallucination, which consisted in the appearance of an old 

* Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. vi. p. 291. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 265 

gray-headed man, with a countenance of great benevolence. The 
vision always occurred in the same manner. The phantom en- 
tered the room by a door on the left side of the bed, passed 
round the foot, and came and sat on a chair on the right-hand 
side. He looked on the sick man with an air of interest and 
pity, but never spoke. Having remained thus for a few minutes, 
he vanished." 

Case CXIV. "A lady," continues the same author, "also 
affected slightly with fever, perceived a large party of men and 
women in her room, seated as at a soire'e, and a servant handing 
refreshments to them on a waiter. The hallucination lasted 
during several days, and was varied by the sight of castles and 
very beautiful churches, which appeared as if cut in crystal. 
From the commencement, the lady was aware that it was an 
illusion of sight, incident to the fever, and amused her friends 
by describing the different objects that passed before her." 

Conolly, who has very carefully studied the effects of fever 
on the imagination, has adopted three degrees of impressions 
which result from it. 

In the first, the patient seems to see the bed surrounded with 
flames, hears voices murmuring in his ear, inhales the odor of a 
feast ; his body feels the sensation of heavy weights moving 
over it. Fantastic figures incessantly pass before his eyes, 
which disappear as rapidly as they come. 

If patients of this character are questioned, some very calmly 
acknowledge that they do experience the symptoms stated; 
others, on the contrary, seem confused, make a thousand excuses 
before acknowledging what they feel; it is evident that they are 
endeavoring to get rid of some importunate idea ; others, again, 
believe in the reality of all these sensations. Of these three 
classes, the last is a prey to delirium, the second approximates 
to it ; the first alone has reason. What is the cause of these 
slight differences? 

The first compare received sensations with surrounding objects, 
appealing to their senses whose integrity is preserved. They 
recognize their chamber, their family, their physician. As to 
the figures which glide about, they are conscious that they do 
not exist. They recollect that they have been ill for some days, 
and have had a fever. Comparing present objects and things 
which they recollect, with the succession of figures that appear 



266 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

before them, or the sounds which they think they have heard, 
they become convinced that these sensations are only creations 
of a disturbed mind. 

The next class approximates closer to delirium ; on awaking, 
the sight of their curtains in flames, terrifies them ; they seize 
hold of them and look anxiously around, but the sense of touch, 
and the tranquillity of their attendants, gives them reason to 
believe that this phenomenon is a symptom of the disease. If 
they are spoken to at the moment of awaking, the voice address- 
ing them is confounded with the images of the dream; but they 
open their eyes, look at you, take your hand, and in comparing 
the sensation that present things awaken with those which they 
have seen in their troubled dreams, they quickly come to them- 
selves. 

This kind of disorder usually lasts some hours or days. If 
it augments, the objects assume a more decided and constant 
form, and delirium may supervene. 

A poor woman in very feeble health, complained in the dis- 
pensary at Stratford, that she constantly saw faces and figures 
cut in half. Sometimes these apparitions appeared in a crowd, 
resembling a number of heads eagerly looking in at the door or 
window. 

Patients of the third class are governed by the images that 
harass them ; they cannot give their attention to the sensations 
which proceed from objects that are present; they continue to talk 
to persons whom they imagine near to them, and do not recog- 
nize the voices of their friends ; their eyes are turned towards 
them, but they have apparently assumed other forms and faces ; 
they look around the room, and think themselves in a strange 
place. In this state, it is impossible for them to compare the 
true sensations, which they are incapable of receiving, with the 
false ones which they alone recognize. They cannot compare 
what they see with what, in their febrile condition, they have 
forgotten, and the necessary consequence of this defect is deli- 
rium or active insanity.. 

In the case of fever, says Conolly, I have several times seen 
these three states vary from one to the other, according as the 
disease progressed and the integrity of sensation was lost ; on 
the other hand, as the disease diminished, the patient recovered 



HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 267 

his power over his senses, and it often required but very slight 
efforts to fix his attention.* 

Several times in the course of typhoid fever, we have con- 
cluded that the sick had visions. This did not escape the no- 
tice of Hibbert. Hallucinations have been seen in all stages of 
this fever and during convalescence. The author of U Observa- 
teur Chretien, quoted by Abercrombie, relates that a farmer, 
returning from market, was much struck by an uncommonly 
brilliant light, which appeared on the road, in the midst of 
which stood the Saviour. Seized with fear, he struck spurs into 
his horse, galloped home, and was much agitated during the 
whole evening. Symptoms of a typhoid fever that was raging 
in the neighborhood appeared, and he died in ten days. It was 
recollected that on the morning of the day on which he saw the 
vision, he had complained of bad headache and great lassitude ; 
there is no doubt that the hallucination was caused by the fever. 

In the same author we read the account of a man, who on re- 
covering from the typhoid fever, imagined himself ten feet in 
height. His bed appeared to be raised seven or eight feet from 
the ground, so that he felt afraid to step out of it. The aper- 
ture of the chimney, likewise, seemed to him as large as the 
arch of a bridge. By a singular contradiction, the persons 
about him appeared to retain their natural size. But the most 
curious cases are those furnished by illusions of the sight. 

The appearance of phantoms in severe fevers were observed 
by the ancients. How many deliriums, says Hippocrates, occur 
in ataxical and adynamic fevers, accompanied by frightful spec- 
tres, which announce ruin in the animal economy, and impending 
destruction !f 

Moreau de la Sarthe relates, in the Encyclopedic Methodique 
(art. Med. Mentale); his having attended a child of twelve or 
thirteen years of age, who, although scarcely acquainted with 
the first rudiments of Latin, was suddenly capable, during a 
raging fever, of speaking it in the greatest purity. The same 
child expressed his gratitude to those who attended him, in lan- 
guage superior to his age and the supposed power of his intel- 
lect. He died some days afterwards. 

* Conolly, op. cit. 

f Abercrombie, op. cit. p. 63. 



268 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Mr. Rayer speaks of having attended one of our most illus- 
trious men, who was attacked with typhoid. For seven or eight 
days, he saw the figure of a man, at the foot of his bed, whom 
he endeavored to drive away. The phantom had no repulsive 
appearance ; it only annoyed him by its presence. On his re- 
covery, it entirely disappeared. Dr. Marotte has related an 
analogous case. 

In two instances, we have noticed the fever to be followed by 
insanity, but we did not observe the hallucinations. M. Szaf- 
kowski noted, in 1845, in the arrondissement of Milan (Avey- 
ron), a deadly epidemic of typhoid fever, with a predominance 
of ataxical symptoms, accompanied with hallucinations of sight 
and hearing.* 

English authors who have written on the fevers of Cadiz and 
Malaga, say, that the sick persons became insensible to external 
agencies, which were replaced by a new world of ideas, of the 
most terrible description. Hideous spectres, the forerunners of 
coma and death, appeared to them. Hallucinations have often 
been noticed in the typhus peculiar to armies, in pestilential 
fevers, and in several epidemics t)f the Middle Ages, which may 
be termed mixed typhus, because they appear to have been de- 
veloped under the influence of human miasma and that arising 
from marshy land. Thucydides, the historian of the plague 
of Athens, speaks of the spectres which terrified the inhabi- 
tants. This plague is classed by modern authors with the 
great typhus. Procopius speaks of men who, in the time of 
the plague perished, victims of this scourge, from having 
dreamed that the demons touched them, or had told them that 
they would shortly die. In the epidemic that unpeopled Neo 
Cesarea, the inhabitants saw phantoms enter their houses. Dur- 
ing a pest that broke out in Egypt, in the time of the Em- 
peror Justinian, brass boats were seen on the sea, rowed by 
black men without heads. And in an epidemic which depopulated 
Constantinople, the inhabitants saw with horror, demons, who, 
clad as priests, went from house to house, carrying death where- 
soever they entered. 

Hildebrand published a valuable treatise on this malady ; its 
chief defect is, that it was not written at a period when the study 

* Op. cii. p. 134. 






HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 269 

of pathological anatomy was cultivated; he has given very 
important details respecting delirium in ague fits, which he calls 
typhomania ; many observations leave no doubt that hallucina- 
tions and illusions exhibit themselves during this severe disease. 

A pupil of this celebrated physician was attacked with con- 
tagious typhus. During a delirium of seven days, he imagined 
that he had to play the part of viper-eater, a character which 
he had seen a short time previously in an opera called the Miroir 
d'Arcadie. He fell into a terrible state of anguish and terror, 
difficult to be described, whenever he felt compelled to seize 
and swallow this dangerous reptile.* 

In more recent descriptions of the army typhus, hallucina- 
tions of sight are also noticed. This symptom was frequently 
combined with the typhus of Mayence. 

Hallucinations have often been observed to accompany inter- 
mittent fevers, which disease has been considered by modern 
authors sometimes to occasion insanity, f 

Nicolai, the famous librarian of Berlin, whose case has already 
been noticed in this work, was attacked, in 1778, with an inter- 
mittent fever, during which colored figures, or landscapes, ap- 
peared to him. If he closed his eyes, the imaginary objects 
vanished, but reappeared on opening them. J 

A derangement of the digestive organs, by reacting on the 
brain and its membranes, has often given rise to hallucinations. 
This is also the case with congestion, and inflammation of the 
organs. It is easily understood that the circumstances which 
produce this delirium in one person may, in another case, give 
rise to false sensations. 

In gastritis, gastro-enteritis, gastrology, and gastroenterology, 
illusions of taste and smell are frequent, and many persons 
thus affected have very decided hallucinations. 

Doctor Hungerford Sealy has published a pamphlet on a 
bilious disease common to hot countries, which is characterized 
by great irritability, accompanied by mental excitement and 

* Hildebrand, Du typhus contagieux, translated from the German. 

f M. Baillarger, De la folie dans les fievres intermittentes, Ann. MM. 
Psych., November, 1843. 

% Th. Sebastien, Remarques sur la melancholie et la manie suite de 
fievres intermittentes.— Journal oV Huf eland, 1821 ; Ann. Med. Psych., Sept. 
1844, p. 211. 



270 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

extraordinary muscular power ; it chiefly attacks those who, 
having been in a foreign country for two or three years, begin 
to feel the attacks of nostalgia. The mind is disturbed by 
visions ; the imagination is over-excited ; the judgment still pre- 
serves some power over the imagination, which has, however, 
much difficulty in obeying it. 

Amongst the examples which he gives, we will choose that of 
the English minister at Messina. When Mr. Hungerford Sealy 
called upon him, he found him looking wild, with eyes yellow, 
and starting from their sockets ; the skin was dry, parched, and 
discolored ; the tongue dry and red on the edges, with a brown 
spot in the centre and at the back ; the pulse small and quick ; 
he had been in this state for three weeks. Mr. Hungerford 
Sealy gave him purgatives, applied leeches to the neck, mustard 
plasters to the feet, and his symptoms were rapidly ameliorated. 

During the progress of the disease, the hallucinations bore a 
striking analogy to the clairvoyance of magnetism ; they were 
of a frightful character. His principal idea was to tear to pieces 
whatever was near to him, to cry, to sing, and to swear. He 
thought he saw his limbs part from his body ; he was persuaded 
of the delusion of his vision, and attributed it to a diseased im- 
agination. The hallucination, however, had such an air of truth 
that it was with the greatest difficulty he could persuade himself 
of its error. The seat of the disease was evidently in the biliary 
system and the mucous membrane of the intestines, which was 
proved by the success of the treament.* 

In the fifteenth volume of Wilson's Philosophical Journal, 
there is a curious case of hallucinations, which occurred during 
an attack of pneumonia. 

Case CXV. "About twelve years ago," says the author, 
" I had an attack of fever, brought on by a violent inflammation 
of the left lung, from a cold taken in the great thaw of 1795. 
The pulse beat 110 in a minute, and the complaint, which lasted 
for several weeks, was accompanied during its whole course by 
disordered perception. On the first night following the attack 
of fever, I had a fatiguing dream ; it seemed to me that I was 

* Observations on a peculiar Nervous Affection incident to Travellers in 
Sicily and Southern Italy, by J. Hungerford Sealy, M. D. — Medico- Chirnr- 
gical Review, July, 1844. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 271 

in the midst of an immense system of mechanical combinations, 
every part of which turned round with great noise and extreme 
rapidity ; at the same time, I had an idea that the object of all 
this bewildering operation was to cure my sickness. When my 
agitation had reached a certain point I awoke with a start, then 
fell off to sleep again, to have my dream renewed. These alter- 
natives having occurred several times, I thought that if I could 
destroy the existing impression the form of the dream would 
change. It appeared to me that the best chance of success would 
be to link some visible object with the idea of the cure. My 
efforts were successful ; for, in the next attack, a bottle, which I 
had fixed in my mind, presented itself; the rotation ceased, and 
my dreams, although disturbed by incongruous ideas, were more 
varied and less painful. 

"The medical treatment consisted in applications of leeches 
to the side affected, bleeding, and saline mixtures. 

" The second night was one of great restlessness ; accompanied 
with drowsiness, and strange and inconsistent dreams, in which 
it was difficult to distinguish sleeping from waking, but which 
did not leave the same inquietude of mind which had augmented 
the sufferings of the preceding night. In the morning the sen- 
sations had undergone a notable change ; the real impressions 
produced by surrounding objects took the place of the phantoms. 
Perfectly awake, calm, with the entire use of memory and rea- 
son, conversing with my attendants, and distinguishing clearly 
exterior objects, I was charmed by a succession of figures, which 
my will could neither prevent, retain, nor drive away. 

" Sometimes they appeared suddenly ; but most generally 
approached gradually, as if emerging from a cloud before show- 
ing themselves in all their splendor. Each figure was visible 
for the space of five or six seconds ; it then vanished slowly, 
until there remained nothing but an opaque and dark vapor, in 
the midst of which another figure was almost immediately formed ; 
they all interested me in the highest degree by the beauty of 
their forms and the variety of their expressions. 

"Their attention was uniformly fixed upon me, although none 
of them spoke. I thought I could look into the souls that ani- 
mated these amiable and intelligent countenances. The admira- 
tion, the sentiment of joy and affection which I experienced in 
contemplating them, and the regret that I felt when each one 



272 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

vanished, entirely riveted my attention ; and this condition was 
only interrupted when I spoke to the persons in my chamber. 

" A particular medicine which I took caused these visions to 
cease suddenly. I do not know for how long a time they ceased ; 
but they returned under the form of books, parchments, and 
printed papers. I seem to recollect that these were illegible, or 
that they appeared and vanished instantaneously." 

" These were all illusions of sight ; once, indeed, I heard mu- 
sical sounds, and, shortly afterwards falling asleep, an animal 
jumped upon my back, uttering such shrill and piercing cries 
that my sleep was entirely broken."* 

Hallucinations have been attendant on a suppression of the 
hemorrhoidal flux. We read the following in the Archives de 
Medeeine : — 

Case CXVL A gentleman of Carlsruhe, in Silesia, forty 
years of age, sound in mind, of mature judgment, and entirely 
free from superstition, enjoyed habitual good health, excepting 
that he was subject to the colic and hemorrhoidal flux ; a cataract 
had formed in one eye, and the sight of the other was much en- 
feebled. He was one day much alarmed by a fire which occurred in 
a house adjoining his own. On the evening of that day, his wife 
remarked that he was restless, and asked strange questions. 
Towards six o'clock, when the candles were lighted, he very 
seriously told her that his mother had entered the room, and 
had taken him by the hand, but retired when he was about rising 
to receive her. He farther said that she was accompanied by 
her husband and three persons whom he did not know. He 
then went to supper in a room above the one in which he usually 
sat, took his repast, and returned to the lower room, still accom- 
panied by the vision. Covering his head with the bedclothes, 
he slept quietly. On the following day, a novel illusion took 
place ; the walls of his room were all over black and white 
squares like a chess-board, and so powerful was the illusion that 
he spoiled several engravings that hung around his apartment. 
After continuing thus for two days, his sight returned to its 
natural condition. He then complained a little of weakness 
and vertigo. His sleep, pulse, and appetite were good. Some 

* Paterson, op. cit. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 273 

laxatives, foot-baths, followed by tincture of quinia, brought a 
return of the hemorrhoids, and entirely cured hirn.* 

The most diverse affections may, under circumstances impos- 
sible for us to appreciate, occasion hallucinations. From the 
following case, which we borrow from Dr. Alderston, it is evident 
that they may occur in gout. 

Case CXVII. "I was called in," says that physician, "to 

Mrs. , a lady eighty years of age, whom I had often 

attended for the gout. She complained of unusual deafness, 
with a great distension of the digestive organs, and was expect- 
ing an attack. Notwithstanding her great age, this lady enjoyed 
good health. She confided to me that for some time past she 
had been disturbed by visions. The first time that she noticed 
the occurrence, she believed that several uninvited friends 
visited her. Having recovered her first surprise, she evinced 
some regret at not being able to converse with them, and was 
about to give orders to have a card-table set. For this purpose 
she rang the bell. On the entrance of the servant, all the 
party disappeared. The lady expressed much surprise at their 
abrupt departure, and the servant had great difficulty in con- 
vincing her that no one had been in the room. 

"She felt so ashamed of the illusion that for several days 
and nights she suffered, in silence, the appearance of a consider- 
able number of phantoms, some of which represented long lost 
friends, and revived thoughts almost entirely effaced. The 
lady contented herself with ringing the bell, when the entrance 
of the servant rid her of their presence. 

" It was some time before she could make up her mind to con- 
fide her sufferings to me. There was nothing either in her conver- 
sation or conduct to indicate a derangement of intellect, and 
she, as well as her friends, was convinced of her perfect sanity. 

" The affection was relieved by plasters on the feet, and mild 
medicines, and was shortly afterwards entirely cured by a regular 
attack of gout. Since that time, both her reason and health 
have been good."f 

* Archives Generales de Medecine, 1824, t. xix. p. 262, Hufeland's 
Journal, Sept. 1824, and Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, April, 
1828. 

f Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. vi. p. 291. 
18 



274 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

All physicians have noted the state of restlessness, inquie- 
tude, melancholy, and terror, brought on by diseases of the heart. 
Persons thus affected, often wake up with a start, being pursued 
by frightful spectres, and hideous phantoms. This disposition 
of mind often occurs during the day. We have collected several 
cases of hallucinations coincident with an organic lesion of the 
heart. 

M. Saucerotte has published several similar cases ; amongst 
others, he mentions that of a subaltern officer, who being attacked 
with hypertrophy of the left ventricle, thought he saw white 
phantoms, of grotesque and indefinable forms, which stood before 
him in menacing attitudes. Ashamed of his fears, acknowledg- 
ing himself the dupe of phantasmagoria, and dreading the 
ridicule of his brother officers, he dared not own with what a 
strange affection he was tormented.* 

The pellagra, a cutaneous disorder observed in Lombardy, 
the Landes of Bordeaux, and in several parts of the south of 
France, is often accompanied by hallucinations and illusions. 
Some persons who are attacked believe themselves to be nuns or 
priests ; others are convinced that Satan is pursuing them, and 
that they see the flames of eternal punishment. In Italy, the 
delirium is more especially of a religious character, and as the 
disease inclines the patient to mournful ideas, the disorder is 
more particularly characterized by the sight of the devil, hell, 
etc.f 

It is probable that the continuance of such sights creates the 
tendency to suicide so frequently observable amongst persons 
suffering with this malady; perhaps, also, the homicidal mono- 
mania, also spoken of, is no stranger to these hallucinations. 
The ideas taking a new direction, may substitute the forms of 
angels and paradise for those of demons, etc. 

Women, under the influence of chloroses, are often a prey to 

* Saucerotte, De Tinfluence des maladies du coeur sur les facultes intel- 
lectuelles et morales de Thomme. — Annal. Med. Psych., t. iv. Sept. 1844, 
p. 177. 

f Brierre de Boismont, De la pellagre et de la folie pellagreuse, Observa- 
tions made in the Grand Hospital at Milan, 2d edit. Paris, 1832. Roussel, .. 
De la pellagre, 1845, 2 vols, in 8vo. Durand Fardel, Art. Pellagre, in 
the Supplement to the Dictionnaire des Dictionnaires de Medecine, 1851, 
p. 608. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 275 

profound melancholy. They seek solitude, shun activity, and 
delight in sombre ideas ; many have symptoms of delirium ; 
they are surrounded by grotesque forms, and see repulsive and 
hideous figures. If this state continues and increases, it may 
result in a fit of mental alienation, and make those objects per- 
manent, which a very slight effort of reason might dispel. 

Muratori reports a curious example of the state of visionary 
happiness which occurs in syncope, and in a semi-loss of conscious- 
ness. A young lady fell into a violent delirium at the close of 
a high fever. On the subsidence of the fever, she remained 
without motion or pulse ; the temperature of the body was so 
low that she was considered dead. Her body was about to be 
arranged for burial, when she heaved a sigh. She was immedi- 
ately rubbed with spirits, and warmed, when finally motion, 
consciousness, and speech returned, and she recovered entirely. 

But, far from thanking those who had taken so much pains to 
restore her to life, she complained bitterly that they had recalled 
her soul, which had attained to an inexpressible state of tran- 
quillity and happiness — a state not to be met with in this life, 
and compared to which its most refined and extreme pleasures 
were as nothing. She added that she had heard the lamenta- 
tions and regrets of her father, and the directions for her 
funeral, but that nothing had disturbed her repose ; that her 
soul was so profoundly steeped in the delights she enjoyed, that 
she had lost all idea of worldly things, and had even lost the 
wish to preserve her body.* 

It cannot be denied that, in certain diseases, an over-excited 
sensibility is developed, which imparts a prodigious degree of 
delicacy and acuteness to the senses ; some individuals, likewise, 
are sensible of odors, which come from considerable distances; 
others announce the arrival of persons, although no one else 
can detect any approaching sound. 

"In some ecstatic and spasmodic diseases," says Cabanis, 
" the organs of sensation become sensitive to impressions unfelt 
in the ordinary state, or even receive unnatural impressions. 
I have frequently observed, in women of nervous temperament, 
the most singular effects result from the changes of which I 
speak." 

* Muratori, Delia Forza della Fantasia, e. a. 



276 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

It is probably for the same reason that we sometimes observe 
hallucinations during the period of convalescence. 

Case CXVIII. Lieutenant- General Thiebault, a man equally 
distinguished for wit and military talents, was, at the close of an 
inflammatory fever that had weakened him considerably, assailed 
by visions ; the more strange, because he was at the time in the 
full enjoyment of his reason; none of his senses were injured, 
and yet the grotesque objects that harassed him, and which he 
knew did not exist, struck him as forcibly, and were as easy for 
him to enumerate and describe as the real objects around him.* 

Case CXIX. Mademoiselle N. was convalescing after a very 
prolonged fever, which had reduced her to a state of extreme 
weakness. All her family had gone to church, when a violent 
storm arose ; Mademoiselle N. went to the window to watch its 
effects; the idea of her father suddenly struck her, and, under 
existing circumstances, she felt much uneasiness. Her imagi- 
nation soon persuaded her that her father had perished. In 
order to conquer her fear, she went into the room in which she 
was accustomed to see him seated in his arm-chair. On entering, 
she was much surprised at seeing him in his place, and in his 
accustomed attitude. She immediately approached to inquire 
how he had come in, and, in addressing him, attempted to place 
her hand on his shoulder, but she encountered only space. Very 
much alarmed, she drew back, and, turning her head as she left 
the room, still saw him in the same attitude. 

More than half an hour elapsed from the time she first saw 
the apparition, until its departure. During this time, Miss "N., 
who was convinced that it was an illusion, entered the room 
several times, and carefully examined the arrangement of the 
objects, and especially of the chair. f 

Under some circumstances, atmospheric influences have ap- 
peared favorable to the formation of hallucinations. In the 
famous winter of 1829 to 1830, I had occasion, says Conolly, 
to notice this fact during the progress of several different 
diseases.;); 

* Eusebe Salverte, Des Sciences Occultes, p. 324. D. Thiebault, Souve- 
nirs d'un Sejour a Berlin, torn. v. 5th ed. 
f Paterson, Mem. cit. 
% Conolly, op. cit. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 277 

M. Prus, in his observations on a pamphlet by M. Baillarger, 
entitled Fragments pour servir a Vhistoire des hallucinations, 
says, that extreme cold may produce hallucinations, and that he 
himself felt its influence in 1814, when he quitted the corps of 
the army to which he was attached, in order to visit his family, 
a distance of two leagues. "I had scarcely," says he, "pro- 
ceeded one league through the most extreme cold, when I per- 
ceived that I was not in my normal condition. I walked 
mechanically instead of by the force of will; and my body 
seemed exceedingly light. Being aware of the cause, and ^also 
of the danger of this state, I tried, but in vain, to hurry on ; 
and what distressed me much was, that I could not prevent my 
eyes from closing every instant. I then had delightful visions ; 
I thought myself transported into delicious gardens, where I 
saw trees, meadows, and streams." 

During the Russian campaign, the military were equally 
assailed by hallucinations, sometimes of a gay, sometimes of a 
melancholy character. 

In 1845, we noticed a marked predominance of nervous symp- 
toms. We owe to the courtesy of Drs. Descuret and Salone, 
the communication of a number of ordinary diseases, combined 
with hallucinations. M. Descuret has mentioned seven cases of 
this character, in persons attacked with the influenza, one of 
which is sufficiently curious to arrest our attention. 

The subject was an ecclesiastic, who imagined himself to be 
triple. In every position, he saw himself thrice repeated. 
When he turned in bed, the two other persons turned with 
him, and placed themselves upon him. 

In all the cases the hallucinations ceased with the disease. 

Hallucinations sometimes precede diseases. 

Plutarch says that Cornelius Scylla was warned of the fever 
that suddenly attacked him, by the sight of a phantom that 
called him by name. Persuaded that his death was at hand, 
he prepared for the event, which occurred on the following 
night.* 

In order to explain this death, there is no need to resort to 
the marvellous. It is probable that Scylla had reached the 
last stage of an organic disease, which was augmented by the 

* Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men. 



278 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

effect of the apparition. Perhaps it hastened his end ; but 
was evidently not a sign of it. It is to such causes, to the 
power of religious belief, to ignorance of scientific facts, and to 
the influence of imagination, that the predictions of death, of 
which there are so many examples among the ancients, must be 
attributed. 

The excitement of the nervous system, and its extreme im- 
pressibility, may, under such circumstances, occasion death. 

Case CXX. " A lady," says Abercrombie, "whom I attended 
some years since for an inflammation of the lungs, woke her 
husband one night, at the commencement of her disease, and 
begged him to rise instantly. She told him that she had dis- 
tinctly seen a man enter the room, pass the foot of the bed, and 
go into the boudoir on the opposite side. She was quite awake, 
and so satisfied of the reality of the apparition, that although 
the room was thoroughly searched, it was impossible to convince 
her of her error." A number of similar facts are related. 

Case CXXI. A celebrated physician communicated to me a 
fact analogous to this, but still more striking. It occurred 
to a near relative of his own, about fifty years of age. Return- 
ing one evening from a visit, she went into a dark room to hang 
up some clothing ; she had scarcely entered before she saw a 
skeleton, with its arm raised, and a poniard in its hand. The 
spectre darted its arm toward her, and plunged the poniard in 
her left side. On the same night she was attacked with fever, 
with a pain in the left side, and inflammatory symptoms. Her 
illness was severe. The impression produced on her mind was 
so strong, that long after her recovery she could not cross the 
threshold of the door where the apparition had appeared with- 
out agitation, and the observation that it was there her illness 
was contracted.* 

Many authors, amongst whom Hibbert must be mentioned, 
have proved, that in the last stages of hectic diseases, and many 
other clwonie affections, it is not unusual for patients to have 
hallucinations of an agreeable nature. By this tendency of the 
organization are explained the numerous communications which 
pious persons on their death-beds believe they hold with spirit- 
ual beings. Perhaps this disposition may be attributed to the 

* Abercrombie, p. 361. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBRILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 279 

happiness the sick persons, especially consumptives, experience, 
at the moment of death, which makes them conceive the most 
varied and beautiful projects. It must not be lost sight of, that 
in speaking of hallucinations consistent with reason, we have 
noted swoonings, syncope, and asphyxia, as favorable to the pro- 
duction of this symptom. 

"Nothing is more surprising," says Aretee, " than the reflec- 
tions sometimes made by sick persons in the crisis of their disease, 
the projects they form, and the sights they witness. Amidst the 
facts of hallucination noticed in the last stage of sickness, is one 
which will forever be engraven on my memory. 

Case CXXII. "On the 1st of June, 1842, 1 received from the 
President of the School of Medicine in Rouen, the sad intelli- 
gence that my mother, who had for many years kept her bed, 
from a disease of the uterus, had two days before had epileptiform 
attacks, with loss of consciousness, of so violent a character that 
her life was despaired of, and it was feared that if in her enfeebled 
state she had another fit, she would die before I could reach 
home. My friend added that these violent crises had, for the 
time, ceased, and were replaced by a tranquil delirium, in which 
she saw shadows and figures of all kinds, spoke of various ob- 
jects entirely unconnected with her position, no longer recog- 
nized those who surrounded her, but imagined herself ill-treated 
by them, and endeavored to drive them away ; even to my sister, 
who had never quitted her bedside, she became entirely indif- 
ferent. In the midst of her incoherent words, one idea seemed 
predominant ; that she should never see me again. She called 
for me unceasingly. That night found me by her side. Pene- 
trating into the apartment of my much-loved mother, towards one 
in the morning, a prey to anguish in which all can sympathize, 
I found her sitting up, with fixed eyes, pronouncing, in a low 
voice, those words of delirium that have so long rung sadly in 
my ears. She desired that the persons who had come into the 
room might be sent away, especially the wicked woman who so 
much tormented her. With her hand, even, she tried to drive 
them off: 'Pray send them away,' she repeated; 'do you not 
hear what a noise they make?' Then followed a mournful si- 
lence. ' They hinder me from seeing my son. My poor son ! 
he will not come ; when he does come, I shall be dead.' This 
delirium lasted for twenty-four hours. 



280 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

"At this sight, I burst into tears, and taking her hand, said, 
; Calm yourself, my good mother, I am near you, I will not 
leave you;' and I pressed her to my heart. Scarcely had I 
said these words, than my mother was silent, as if endeavoring 
to collect herself; and recovering her senses, said to me : ' Tell 
me, is it indeed you, my son ? Ah, I know your voice. Where 
are you ? I do not see you.' Her attention becoming more and 
more concentrated, she distinguished objects, and finally per- 
ceived me. ' You are there,' added she, 'I shall die content !' 
Her delirium had ceased ; the sound of my voice had sunk to 
the depths of her soul. A miraculous change had occurred; 
reason shone brightly on the altar of maternal love. During 
the remaining five days of her life, I had the extreme happi- 
ness of seeing her reason preserved. On the fifth, the day of 
her death, an artist was taking her portrait ; it was eleven 
o'clock in the morning. The painter observing her grow pale, 
proposed to defer the sitting. ' Go on,' said she, ' it will soon 
be too late.' At three she expired." 

For the completion of this chapter, it only remains to speak 
of hallucinations in nervous complaints, and in some morbid 
conditions to which we referred when we spoke of hallucinations 
compatible with reason, but it would be only to repeat what we 
have already said; it appears to us sufficient to have called 
attention again to this subject. 

Recapitulation. — Hallucinations may be combined with all 
diseases. 

The impressions produced on the imagination by fever, have 
been divided into three degrees ; in one, reason is intact; in the 
second, it is overthrown ; in the third, destroyed. Any one of 
these states may replace the other. 

Hallucinations sometimes precede the disease, of which they 
are then the signal precursors. 

The principal diseases in which hallucinations have been 
observed are : inflammatory fevers, congestions, inflammations, 
and diseases of the brain and its membranes,* inflammations of 
the lungs, lesions of the digestive organs, typhoid and intermit- 
tent fevers, gout, hectic diseases, etc. 

* Durand Fardel, Traite" du Kamollissement du Cerveau ; a work to 
which a prize was awarded by the Koyal Academy of Medicine, 1843, 1 
vol. 8vo., pp. 235, 249, 328. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN FEBKILE AND OTHER MALADIES. 281 

The special character of hallucinations in the last stage of 
hectic diseases, is probably linked to a sense of happiness which 
makes this class of sick persons form a multitude of projects. 

The combination of hallucinations with nervous diseases, has 
been sufficiently established. 

Convalescence, abstinence, and loss of consciousness, may 
cause hallucinations. They have also been occasioned by atmo- 
spheric influences. 

It is probable that the production of hallucinations in disease 
is the result of a morbid action of the nervous and circulatory 
cerebral systems ; but how they are produced remains undis- 
covered. 

Hallucinations are then manifested like delirium ; hitherto 
cerebral modification has escaped all our researches, 



CHAPTER XIV. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS.* 

Etiology of hallucinations and illusions — It should be sought in the psychical and 
corporeal elements of man, and above all in ideas, in hallucinations of long 
standing, single and compatible with reason. 

First Division. — Moral causes ; their influence on hallucination — Statistic — Epi- 
demic hallucinations — Influence of dominant ideas — Demonology, sorcery, 
magic, lycantrophy, apparitions, vampirism, ecstasies — Influence of different 
civilizations — Influence of the passions, of fixed ideas, of preoccupations of 
the mind, and of bodily occupations. 

Second Division. — Physical causes. — These may be subdivided into five heads : 
1. The influence of inheritance, of the sexes, of age, etc. — 2. The influence 
of mechanical causes, of fermented liquors and narcotic and poisonous sub- 
stances — 3. The influence of mental diseases — 4. The influence of nervous dis- 
eases other than insanity — 5. The influence of acute, chronic, and other dis- 
eases — Recapitulation. 

Before we trace the accessible sources of hallucinations, 
that is to say, the secondary causes,f we must remember that 
ideas are composed of two distinct elements — a sensible sign 
and a pure conception. Mysteriously united, like the soul and 
the body, they form a perfect emblem of the nature of man. 
Hallucination, that outward garment, that daguerreotype of an 
idea, being then only the corporeal portion, whilst pure concep- 
tion is its psychical part, it is evident that in these two elements 
we must seek the cause of this singular phenomenon. 

The observations we have made on fever doubtless prove 
that this state is favorable to the production of errors of the 

* The study of the causes of hallucinations has so many points of union 
with that of illusions ; or rather, the ties which unite them are so intimate, 
that we have judged it right not to separate them. 

f The primary cause of this phenomenon will always remain hidden, 
like that of all facts which surround us. It is the difference which sepa- 
rates the finite from the infinite, towards which we are constantly tending, 
often against our will, and which our most ardent desire to know will never 
alter in this world. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 283 

senses ; but it must not be considered as exclusive, because fever 
may exist for a long time without either delirium or hallucina- 
tion. There are, besides, cases of hallucination occurring in 
persons in good health, gifted with remarkable sense and under 
no morbid influence, which can only be explained by a peculiar 
modification of the nervous system. Such is the following 
case : — 

Case CXXIII. Madame la Vicomtesse d'A., wife to the cele- 
brated author of that name, whom I attended for many years, 
was conversing with me one day on the apparitions of Holy 
Writ, of which her piety never permitted her to entertain the 
least doubt. "I will relate," said she, "an event that oc- 
curred to me twelve years ago, and which is a fresh proof of the 
reality of those visions to which your science gives the name of 
hallucinations. I had received a letter from my son-in-law, 
Count d'O., informing me that my daughter, from whom I was 
separated several hundred leagues, was very ill, but the letter 
did not contain any expression which led me to fear a fatal 
termination to her sickness. On returning to my room (it was 
then nine in the morning), preoccupied with the idea of my 
child's suffering, I heard a heart-piercing voice pronounce these 
words: 'Lovest thou me?' I felt no surprise, and instantly 
replied, in a loud voice : i Lord, thou knowest that I have placed 
all my trust in thee, and that I love thee with all my soul.' 
The voice added : s Wilt thou yield her to me V A shudder of 
fear ran through me, but recovering myself, I again replied : 
' Howsoever painful the sacrifice, thy holy will be done !' and I 
then fell into an arm-chair in a fainting state. On the following 
day, a second letter brought me intelligence of the death of my 
dear child." 

All who were acquainted with the Viscountess, knew her as a 
sensible, well-informed, and strong-minded woman. Tried by 
severe moral afflictions, which spare neither rank nor age, reli- 
gious principle had sustained her. The more misfortunes 
assailed her, the more she implored consolation from God. In 
a word, she was a fervent Catholic, without bigotry or fanati- 
cism ; one of those privileged natures formed to administer to the 
happiness of their fellow-creatures, and who, on quitting the 
world, give an example of those glorious, unostentatious deaths 



284 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

justly contrasted by Count de la Mark with the dramatic deaths 
vaunted to him by Mirabeau.* 

We shall make only a few brief remarks on the hallucinations 
of Madame d'A. It took place in broad daylight, at a period 
when her health was excellent ; at a time when her attention 
was concentrated on the illness of her daughter. Brought up 
in the Christian faith, from which she had never swerved, and 
having always had recourse to prayer in her sorrows, she expe- 
rienced no astonishment at the words which she believed she 
heard. Twelve years had elapsed, when Madame d'A. related 
the anecdote to me ; but her belief in its reality was as vivid as 
on the day of its occurrence. This example is to me a most 
convincing proof of the manner in which the apparitions of the 
Middle Ages may be explained, and of the falsity of that sys- 
tem that would always convert hallucinations into a system of 
insanity. 

In a medical point of view, there is no doubt that the nervous 
and sanguine elements play a considerable part in hallucina- 
tions ; but how do they act ? Therein lies the difficulty. We 
are entirely ignorant of their modes of action in the normal com- 
binations of thought. Pathological anatomy might perhaps 
inform us that certain cerebral changes are more suited to their 
manifestation, which is, however, far from being proved. We 
only know that several stimulants contribute to give more 
vivacity and animation to ideas, which after all signifies that 
a greater affluence of blood reaches the brain. It may then be 
given, as a general rule, that a greater excitation of the nerv- 
ous system, and a greater afflux of blood, contribute to the 
development of hallucinations. But what is the agent of these 
excitations ? how does it modify these elements ? where does 
it make itself felt ? These are questions, the solution of which 
is not more easy than a thousand others of the same nature 

* Correspondance entre le Comte de Mirabeau et le Comte de la Mark, 
recueillee et publiee par M. de Bacourt, t. i. pp. 258, 259. Mirabeau, et 
la cour de Louis XVI. par M. St. Marc Girardin, Kevue des Deux Mondes, 
1st Oct. 1851. Some time after that conversation, the Comte de la Mark 
went to see Mirabeau, who was seriously ill in bed ; he, desirous of giving 
a proof of the, impression which his words had made on his mind, bade 
him approach, and pressing his hand, said, "My dear connoisseur in glo- 
rious deaths, are you satisfied ?" 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 285 

which have remained unanswered. Must we not admit a pre- 
disposition, that unknown something which we everywhere 
encounter ? Without this assumption, how can we explain 
apoplexy in some cases, cerebral inflammation in others ; in 
one, softening of the brain, in another, mania ; in one, stupor, 
and in another the absence of any morbid phenomena? 

Thus, in fine, under the influence of a moral or physical force, 
a stronger stimulation of the nervous and sanguineous systems 
may produce an hallucination, without the possibility of esta- 
blishing an intimate relation between these two orders of facts. 

Having thus touched on the organic element, we will return 
to the world of ideas, in which we must necessarily seek the 
causes of the singular phenomena of hallucinations. Such a 
study, by its immensity, would offer almost insurmountable 
difficulties if we did not establish some fixed points to serve as 
guides in the work. Thus, in a first chapter, we will consider 
the action of social and individual influences, and of moral and 
physical causes, on the production of hallucinations ; and in a 
second chapter, we will endeavor to penetrate more deeply into 
their mode of formation, by examining them psychologically, 
historically, morally, and religiously. 

The study of the causes of hallucinations offers great diffi- 
culties. This disorder of the senses having always been looked 
upon as an epiphenomenon of insanity, authors in general have 
agreed not to consider it as a special subject, or to class its 
etiology with that of mental diseases. Ferriar and Hibbert, 
who have published special works on hallucinations, anterior to 
those of Esquirol, have pursued this erroneous course. 

It is worthy of notice that the greater number of insane per- 
sons have hallucinations, but it is no less certain that they may 
be manifested singly. Even in their complicated state, it is not 
always difficult to recognize their origin. Finally, we may draw 
useful information from those which are compatible with reason, 
or which accompany disease. 

DIVISION I.— MORAL CAUSES. 

Hallucinations appearing with mental diseases, of which they 
are signs, the complication, development, termination, epiphe- 



286 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

nomena, etc., a priori, the division into moral and physical 
causes should be equally applicable to them. 

A fact noticed in our Memoire sur V Influence de la Civilisa- 
tion, appears to decide the question in favor of moral causes. 
In fact, epidemic hallucinations, such as vampirism, ecstasies, 
and visions seen in the plague, are not capable of any other 
explanation. Hallucinations were transmitted in this case, by 
the influence of educational and social ideas, by the force of 
example, by an actual moral contagion, absolutely in the same 
way that thousands of men rush to battle at the voice of a cele- 
brated chief, or that numbers massacre a defenceless one, urged 
on by the energetic appeal of some infuriate madman. 

The double action of the moral over the physical proves that 
hallucinations cannot escape the common law, but the seat of 
their action and their nature betokens the predominance of one 
of these influences ; thus, from the commencement of our re- 
searches, we have maintained that profound preoccupation and 
prolonged concentration of thought on a single object are 
eminently favorable to the production of hallucinations. Ex- 
amples given of philosophers, poets, and founders of religions, 
decide the point; but we have insisted on the difference of 
these hallucinations from those observable in insanity. 

Men who, by an ill-directed education, are in a state of con- 
stant excitement, whose organization has become very impres- 
sible, and who have given unbounded license to their imagina- 
tions, are subject to hallucinations. Certain imaginations, says 
a modern author, are necessarily superstitious ; they are usually 
among the rich and high-born ; they are less willing to admit 
truth than fable ; nature is too vulgar for them, attracted as 
they are, by their instincts, towards the impossible, or, at least, 
towards the ideal. It is therefore that they take delight in a 
rich dark wood, because its gloomy arches may be peopled with 
phantoms and genii. The ancients, who were such great poets, 
dreamed of these things by day. Their heated imaginations 
were to them as the sun, a focus of intense light, inspiring them 
with images of larvae and phantoms, laughing dryads, etc. 
Thus it is with those who allow their minds to dwell incessantly 
on chimerical projects and fanciful creations. 

The general desire to be fed with chimeras, which has given 
birth to the just observation : Man is ice for wisdom, and fire 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 287 

for falsehood — appears to us a fruitful source of hallucinations. 
Having passed ten, fifteen, or twenty years in dreaming, it 
requires but a slight addition of color to deepen the tint, when 
the panorama stops at the favorite subject, and that which has 
caused the deepest impression. Sufficient attention has not 
been bestowed on this misty phantasmagoria in which we live. 
Those undecided forms, which approach and retire unceasingly, 
with a thousand tantalizing smiles, and after which we run with so 
much ardor, travel through our brains, emerge from their clouds, 
and become clearer and clearer ; then the moral or physical 
point is reached ; thought revived, colored, and represented, 
suddenly appears in a material form, and is transformed into an 
hallucination. 

"Wonderful and frightful stories, and menaces, so long the 
accompaniments of childhood, would naturally dispose impres- 
sible minds to collect all the fantastic creations of the age. In 
these days, it may be argued, the system is completely changed ; 
children are taught to ridicule the old-fashioned credulity. 
This argument would be unanswerable, if schools and colleges 
only were in question ; but what shall be said of the mercena- 
ries to whom the earliest infancy of children is confided ? This 
is the nursery of folly, terror, and dreadful tales, in the belief 
of which they grow up. I will content myself with the ex- 
ample of one of the greatest poets of England, Robert Burns. 
"I owed much in my infancy," says he, " to an old woman who 
lived near to us, and who was unusually ignorant, credulous, 
and superstitious. No one in the whole country had so great a 
collection of stories and songs of devils, fairies, spirits, sorcerers, 
magicians, will-o'-the-wisps, hobgoblins, phantoms, apparitions, 
charms, giants, dragons, etc. Not only did these recitals culti- 
vate in me the germs of poetry, but they had such an effect on 
my imagination that even now, in my nocturnal rambles, I often, 
in despite of myself, keep my eye upon certain suspicious places; 
and although no one can be more skeptical in such matters, it 
nevertheless, sometimes, requires an effort of philosophy to chase 
away these vain terrors."* 

Darkness, gloom, the silence of night, and solitude, contribute 

* Poesies complete de Robert Bums, translated from the English, by 
Leon de Wailly. Notice sur Burns. Paris, 1843, edit. Charpentier. 



288 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

powerfully to develop the sentiment of terror, so unhappily in- 
stilled into the minds of children. They easily imagine frightful 
objects which look at them menacingly ; they see assassins, 
robbers, devils, and monsters of all kinds. 

This effect of obscurity is very sensibly exhibited in the fren- 
zied. At the first, their incoherences and wanderings only occur 
when they are in a dark room, or when they close their eyes ; 
they then see a multitude of horrible figures, which approach 
them with menaces and grimaces. So soon as they open their 
eyes, or light is admitted into the room, the phantoms vanish. 

Complete solitude or long imprisonment, is each a fruitful 
cause of hallucinations. 

The wife of a condemned politician, whose husband was a 
madman in Bic^tre, told us that the prisoners who were sen- 
tenced with him, and had been for many years imprisoned, were 
tormented by visions. 

M. Leon Faucher speaks of a prisoner who told MM. de 
Beaumont et Tocqueville, that, during the first months of his 
solitude, he was often visited by strange visions ; for several 
succeeding nights, he saw an eagle perched on the foot of his 
bed. In 1840, in the penitentiary in Philadelphia, there were 
ten out of twelve cases of hallucinations, and from 183T to 1841, 
eighty-six prisoners went mad. What commentator would not 
grow pale at the simple enumeration of these facts ?f 

M. Gosse also says that several persons in a penitentiary in 
Switzerland, having no predisposition to insanity before their 
incarceration, almost all became hallucinated under the influence 
of solitary confinement. 

We have already related an anecdote of Benvenuto Cellini ; 
and Silvio Pellico, who was incarcerated at Spielburg, thus de- 
scribes the effect of solitude upon himself: — 

" During these horrible nights, my imagination was so highly 
excited, that, although quite awake, it appeared to me that I 
heard sometimes sighs, sometimes stifled laughter. In childhood, 
I had never believed in magicians and sorcerers, but now 
these sighs and laughter filled me with terror. I could not 
explain it, and was obliged to ask myself if I was not the sport 
of some mysterious and evil power. 

* De la Eeforme des Prisons. Revue des Deux Mondes Fevrier, 1841. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 289 

" I several times took my lamp, with a trembling hand, to 
examine if some person was not hidden beneath my bed. At 
table, it seemed as if some one pulled my coat, or drew away 
the book, which I saw fall to the earth, or came behind me to 
blow out my light. I would then start up, look around, stride 
defiantly up and down, and ask myself if I was or was not 
mad. 

" In the morning these phantoms vanished, and whilst day- 
light remained, my heart felt so courageous that it seemed 
impossible that I could again be assailed by such terrors. But 
at sunset, my fears recommenced, and each night brought but a 
repetition of the fearful visions of the preceding one. 

"These nocturnal apparitions, which by day I called foolish 
illusions, became at night terrible realities."* 

Some of Silvio Pellico's companions in misfortune endured 
similar sensations. The greatest anxiety of Gonfalonieri, at 
Spielberg, was the fear of losing his reason, which, to use his own 
expression, appeared always on the point of taking flight. 

The Abbe' Langlet Dufresnay remarks, that apparitions seldom 
appear excepting in deserts, solitudes, monasteries, or other 
secluded situations. 

We will make no comment on cellular imprisonment, excepting 
that we believe, if carried out in all its rigor, it would have a 
decided influence on the volatile and impressible organization of 
the French. 

When the mind is thus prepared to receive these illusions, 
any accidental circumstance, such as an unusual sound, a parti- 
cular disposition of the light, a shadow, or a certain arrange- 
ment of the draperies in the room are sufficient to produce all 
the effects of reality; and hence have originated a number of 
curious facts. Sir Walter Scott, whose mind was powerfully 
excited by the account of the death of the illustrious Byron, 
saw, on entering his dining-room, the image of his friend before 
him. Struck with the minute accuracy with which his imagina- 
tion had reproduced every peculiarity of dress, with the manner 
of the great poet, he stood still a few moments; then advancing, 

* Silvio Pellico, Mes prisons, traduction de M. Antoine Latour, p. 127, 
et sea., 1840. — Alex. Andryane, Memoires d'un Prisonier d'Etat, 2 vols, in 
8vo. Paris, 1840. 
19 



290 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

he perceived that this vision was owing to the accidental ar- 
rangement of a piece of drapery on a screen. 

Case CXXIV. Ferriar gives the case of a gentleman, who, 
losing his way whilst travelling in Scotland, demanded hospitality 
in a little solitary cottage. The hostess remarked, with a mys- 
terious kind of repugnance on conducting him to his room, that 
he would not find the window very secure. On examination, he 
perceived that a portion of the wall had been broken, in order to 
enlarge the opening. She told him, in reply to his inquiries, 
that a colporteur, who had lodged some time before in this room, 
had committed suicide in it, and was found in the morning sus- 
pended behind the door. The corpse, according to the custom 
of the country, not being allowed to pass through the door, it 
had been necessary to break away a portion of the wall, in order 
to take the body through the window. The hostess added that 
the room had ever since been haunted by the ghost of the poor 
man. 

Somewhat disturbed by the story, my friend retired to rest, 
having loaded his arms, and placed them by his side. In his 
sleep he had a frightful vision, and, waking half dead with fear, 
he found himself seated on the side of the bed, pistol in hand. 
Casting a look around him, he saw, by the light of the moon, a 
corpse in a winding-sheet, standing up against the wall, close to 
the window. He resolved, after much hesitation, to approach 
this hideous object, which was clearly defined. He passed his 
hand over it, and, feeling nothing, rushed back to his bed. 
Again, after a long struggle with his terror, he recommenced 
his investigation, and found that the object of his alarm was 
produced by the rays of the moon, forming a long illuminated 
image, which his imagination, frightened by his dreams, had 
metamorphosed into a corpse prepared for burial.* 

These remarks have already sufficiently proved the influence 
of moral causes in the production of hallucinations. The de- 
tails on which we are about to enter will leave no doubt on 
this point. In 115 out of 190 cases, collected by others or our- 
selves, the causes which have induced the development of hallu- 

* Ferriar, op. cit. p. 24. We have already dwelt on the characteristics 
which separate illusion from hallucination ; the distinction should not be 
lost sight of. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 



291 



cinations have been meditations carried to ecstasy, the dominant 
religious, philosophic, political, and superstitious ideas of the 
period.* Inventions of fancy, concentration of thought, strug- 
gles of mind, exclusive passions, preoccupation, inquietude, re- 
morse, grief, excess of study, love, hope, jealousy, and anger. 
These causes exhibited themselves in the following order: — f 



Ecstatic meditations, day or night ecstasy 


33 


Dominant ideas, religious and social 


24 


Educational ideas, terrors . 


11 


Concentrations of thought, exclusive passions 


7 


Remorse ...... 


6 


Grief 


5 


Love . 


5 


Occupations, habits of mind and body . 


4 


Fanciful compositions .... 


3 


Excess of study ..... 


3 


Solitary imprisonment .... 


3 


Jealousy ...... 


2 


Anger, resentment .... 


2 


Misery ....... 


2 


Conversations, reading prolonged far into the n 


ight 2 


Hope ....... 


1 


Ambition ...... 


1 


Hallucinations combined with madnessj . 


53 


Hallucinations combined with disease 


23 



190 

All these causes are far from being equally important ; we 
prefer dwelling on those that have been most prominent, and 
amongst which we would first place education, belief, the domi- 
nant ideas of the times, different states of society, etc. 

* In a work, published by the Annates Mtdico-PsycJiologiques, entitled 
"Du Suicide dans V Antiquite, dans le Moyen age, et dans les temps mo- 
dernes," we have called attention to the influence of philosophic and reli- 
gious ideas as connected with suicide. Hallucinations are submitted to 
similar laws. 

f This table is but an extract from the observations resulting from our 
researches. 

% The number of insane in whom hallucinations are observed is much 
more considerable ; but we only refer to the cases contained in our work. 



292 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

We are not of that school who think a history of a people 
can he written by their follies ; truth is the rule, error the ex- 
ception. A free exercise of reason is the normal state of nations; 
its disturbance is a transient effect, which yields to moral or 
physical remedies. It may certainly happen that the human 
mind be led astray by social and educational influences; and 
then those furious tornadoes arise, which draw whole masses of 
men into their vortex. Error and folly appear to govern the 
world ; but these usurpations have but a time, and in their very 
midst, energetic protestations make themselves heard; so that 
it is much more just to say that these great disorders are criti- 
cal epochs, and if they are admitted into history, it is only that 
no part of the picture may be omitted. 

Since the publication of this passage, important events have 
occurred. We will only here notice them as connected with the 
nature of hallucinations. In the two establishments of which 
we have been director and physician, two forms of this phenome- 
non in particular have come under our notice. In the one case, 
the individuals, chiefly belonging to the old noblesse, terrified 
at the sanguinary recollections of the revolution of '93, tremb- 
ling for the safety of their families and fortunes, were gen- 
erally a prey to hypochondria, with a tendency to suicide; 
they imagined themselves surrounded with assassins and execu- 
tioners ; heard the booming of cannon, and uttered shrieks of 
terror. In the second form, which attacked more particularly 
those in whom the new order of things had awakened great hopes, 
the insanity took quite a contrary character. They thought 
themselves representatives, presidents of the Eepublic, or re- 
formers called upon to bring happiness, fortune, health, and long 
life to the human race ; some even dreamed of an indefinite 
existence. The hallucinations of this class were of a lively cha- 
racter. They heard voices which spoke agreeable words, and made 
great promises to them. There were, however, some of this lat- 
ter class, whose insanity consisted in violent exasperation against 
their enemies, for whose death they loudly clamored ; the guillo- 
tine and other instruments of death were present to them, and 
threatening voices were incessantly addressing them. Of course, 
we are understood to speak only of those who came under our 
immediate care, who were by no means the greater number. 
The prevailing disease of the period having attacked the most pow- 



CAUSES OP HALLUCINATIONS. 293 

erful minds, no importance was attached to those exaggerations 
which at another time would have attracted attention.* Besides, 
a vast number of these demoniacs fell in combat in the streets, 
or were lost sight of in prisons, hospitals, and exile. It may be 
well to repeat a remark already made, which is, that although 
perhaps the number of insane in private establishments has not 
been increased, the disease has no less left its traces, the proof 
of which will one day be exhibited in those who were conceived 
during the impression of these deplorable times. 

Education, whose all-powerful action in the production of op- 
pressive ideas we have already mentioned as being a fruitful 
source of physical and moral disease, may, says M. Cerise, im- 
part single but false notions ; in which case there will be error, 
ignorance, and prejudice, but no morbid condition. Thus the 
idea of a female head, associated with the sensorial impression 
produced by the moon, or that of the tomb of a giant associated 
with the sensorial impression occasioned by a mountain, consti- 
tuted beliefs of a greater or less poetical character, without 
danger to those who admitted them. It is otherwise when the 
association of the idea with the sensation is united with sensual 
and sentimental emotions; when, for example, the idea of a 
frightful spectre is, from infancy, coupled with that of a certain 
stone or a birch tree, as is the case in some of our country places. f 
These false ideas are, to those who entertain them, the causes of 
uneasiness, fears, and torments. 

"False ideas," continues the same author, " associated with 
sensual and sentimental emotions, are those which exert the 
most deplorable influence on hallucinations of all periods. Let 
us first mention those superstitious beliefs, the relics of former 
religions, which have traced such deep furrows in popular tradi- 
tion. When we recollect the long course of ages which have by 
turns witnessed the reigns of magic, astrology, sorcery, divina- 
tion, presages, invocations, augurs, auspices, necromancy, the 
cabala, oracles, the interpretation of dreams, pythonesses, sybils, 
manes, lares, talismans, the presence of demons in corporeal 
form, incubes, succubes, familiars, vampirism, possession, 
lycantrophy, ghosts, shadows, spectres, phantoms, hobgoblins, 

* Gruddeck, De la Maladie democratique. 

f Cerise, des Fonctions et des Maladies Nerveuses, Paris, 1842, 1 vol. 
8vo., p. 463. 



294 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

sylphs, fairies, urchins, will-o'-the-wisps, evil eye, enchantments, 
etc., can we help sighing at the facility with which man receives 
error, and almost fancying that we are destined to live in the midst 
of a world of illusions, unless we trace it to the sad consequences 
of a false education, and of a forgetfulness of morality and 
religion?" 

To dwell upon all these causes would pass the limits of this 
work ; we restrict ourselves, therefore, to the consideration of 
some which have prevailed the most in European society, such 
as the belief in the power and materiality of demons, in sor- 
cery, in possession, magic, lycantrophy, ghosts, vampires, spi- 
rits, etc. 

The religion of the ancients, which peopled all nature with 
divinities and genii (comprehended under the general name of 
demons), would naturally lead to a belief in the power and 
materiality of spirits. The influence which the doctrines of 
Plato, borrowed probably from those of Zoroaster, exercised 
under this point of view, was immense. On studying the ideas 
and manners of Grecian society, we see that the philosophy of 
Plato was the great law of the schools of Alexandria. They 
were above all else Platonists, nor did they cease to be so, on 
becoming Christians. On the contrary, they attempted to re- 
concile the genius of Plato with the severe and rigorous philo- 
sophy of Christianity. Thence arose so many metaphysical and 
abstruse discussions, and thence were derived the errors and 
heresies of so many celebrated men. Saint Justin, Saint Cle- 
ment of Alexandria, Origen, blind Didymus, and many others, 
belonged to the platonic school. But this was confined to elegant 
and polished society. Learned men disputed for and against, 
and gained a reputation in the schools or in churches ; the minds 
of the ignorant, the lower order of the people, and the peasantry, 
took another direction, and as they could neither read nor write, 
they were only affected by the material part of Christianity. 
They stopped, as it were, on the threshold. Unable to distinguish 
themselves in disputation, in controversies with pagans, or in 
the instruction of neophytes, they only adopted that part of 
Christianity which was material, but they adopted it rigorously 
and to the letter, in its most absolute sense ; thus they soon 
invested it with terrors, almost always borrowed from the archi- 
tecture or literature of the times. In those days, the halluci- 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 295 

nated were pursued by black devils, with horns, cloven feet, 
and a long tail, as, in other times, Orestes was tormented by 
Eumenides, and terrified by the hissing of serpents. 

The history of demons, propagated by ignorance the love of 
the marvellous, and fear, that queen of the world ; and received 
by credulity, placed the human mind under the yoke of a terror 
which everything concurred to augment ; the devil was univer- 
sally believed to have been seen, heard, or touched. Moreover, 
how could they do otherwise than attribute to this sinister influ- 
ence those frightful calamities, so eloquently described in the 
correspondence of Saint Jerome,* which overwhelmed the 
Roman world? Was not the belief general that the Huns 
were infernal spirits? 

Such was the origin of the hallucinations which universally 
reigned during several centuries, which still reign in many 
countries, especially in Lapland, and of which there are also 
frequent examples in France, as Esquirol, M. Macario, and our- 
selves can certify. The most celebrated men paid tribute to the 
doctrines of the period, but their hallucinations had no influence 
on their reason, conduct, or actions ; what they did was the 
result of education, and did not bear the impress of insanity. 

To believe that demons existed in corporeal forms, was to admit 
the possibility of forming compacts and relations with them, and 
to acknowledge their power over men; in other words, to believe 
in sorcery, possession, and lycantrophy. The belief that demons 
interfered in the actions of life was the source of immense dis- 
orders, which massacres and scaffolds only served to increase. 
Men, women, and children persuaded themselves that they had 
assisted at the Witch's sabbath, had interviews with the devil, 
and had seen persons sign a horrible compact with him. Judges 
and ecclesiastics, giving faith to such declarations, condemned 
thousands of victims to death. 

"In order to comprehend any particular epoch," says the 
author of an able article in the British Review, "it is necessary 
to have an exact picture of the opinions and manners of the 
time.f" " Certainly, our brains are no longer," as Hutchinson 

* Saint Jerome et son siecle, introduction au Pantheon litteraire, pp. 
277, 286, 517, 607, 612, 620, 621, 655. 

f British Review, July, 1830 ; Parchappe, Du Maillet des Sorcieres ; 
Host Zauber-Bibliotek, oder von Zauberei ; Theurgei und Mantik, Zau- 



296 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

remarked, in speaking of Boudin, "ball-rooms for devils to dance 
in," but fear has taken other forms; and is manifested in dread 
of the police, of enemies, etc." 

It was, nevertheless, an exalted and praiseworthy principle, 
which gave birth to these superstitious beliefs of our ancestors, 
howsoever absurd and sanguinary they may appear to us. 

The desire to overstep the limits of the visible world and to 
communicate with beings to whom a more exalted rank in crea- 
tion was attributed, would appear, at first sight, calculated to 
exercise only a salutary influence on the mind. They considered 
these privileged beings as a kind of Jacob's ladder, by which 
they could establish a communication between heaven and earth, 
and receive direct divine influences. Unhappily, the supposi- 
tion of these direct correspondences with angelic natures gave 
rise to a belief in the possibility of an equal communication with 
evil spirits. 

This direct intervention of the devil in human affairs being 
once recognized, and generally admitted, would, by inevitable 
consequence, lead to all sorts of follies and extravagances. 
Every one speculated on the subject according to his peculiar 
turn of mind; and in a short time the foolish fancies of minds, 
weakened by sickness or misfortune, were, by constant repetition, 
formed into a kind of code or system of belief, which, being in- 
stilled with the first rudiments of instruction, reduced the most 
powerful minds beneath its influence; those even of Luther, 
Calvin, Zuingle, Ecolampadius, Melancthon, and Knox, men so 
prompt in detecting error, and so intrepid in exposing it, par- 
took of the belief of their times. At a later period, the cele- 
brated Sir Matthew Hale pronounced sentence of death against 
poor women accused of sorcery ; even Sir Thomas Browne, -who 
had torn the veil from vulgar errors, and who spoke in this suit, 
declared " that the convulsions of the accused, although arising, 
from natural causes, were greatly augmented by the co-opera- 
tion of the devil, who interposed on the solicitations of the 
sorceresses." 

Spinello, predecessor of Milton, was the first, who, in those 
barbarous times, imparted somewhat of a terrible beauty to 

beren Hexen, und Hexen Processen, Dsemonen, Gespentern und Geister- 
ercheinungen, Mayence, 1828 ; Friedrich, Systematische Literatur der 
'arztlichen und gerictlichen Psychologie, p. 260, et seq., Berlin, 1833. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 297 

Lucifer; this innovation of genius did not prevent his remaining 
faithful to the ideas of his age ; his reason gave way soon after 
he had completed his picture of the fall of the angels ; he be- 
lieved himself pursued by the devils which he had represented, 
and died in the midst of his terrors. 

It was not until 1484 that Magic began to play an important 
part in history. The bull of Innocent the Eighth roused the 
smouldering fires. 

With what terror, in the sixteenth, or the commencement of 
the seventeenth century, would the recital of the visions of the 
unhappy Bachzko,of Koenigsberg,be listened to, which tormented 
him during his political labors in 1806; that hideous negro 
seated opposite to him ; that monstrous owl's head watching him 
every night between the curtains ; those serpents twisting around 
his knees, as he sat, inditing his sentences, were well calcu- 
lated to inspire sentiments of horror.* 

In 1651, we find the Englishman Pordasje relating as actual 
facts, similar visions produced by an over-excitement of the 
brain. He and his disciples, Jane Leade, Thomas Bromley, 
Hooker, Sabberton, and others, saw a vision on their first day of 
assembling, of incomparable magnificence. The powers of hell 
passed in review before them ; seated in chariots drawn by 
lions, bears, dragons, and tigers, in the midst of portentous 
clouds. Next in succession followed the inferior spirits, with 
ears of cats and griffins, and distorted and twisted limbs. These 
visions were equally distinct, whether the disciples opened or 
closed their eyes, "for," said their master, "we see with the 
eyes of the mind, not of the body." 

At the close of the sixteenth century, Dr. Dee asserted, with 
apparent sincerity, that he was on terms of intimacy with the 
greater number of the angels ; his partner, Dr. Richard Napier, 
father of the illustrious inventor of logarithms, believed that he 
received the greater number of his medical prescriptions from 
the angel Raphael. At this period, there were few practition- 
ers who thought they could complete a cure without the aid of 
some supernatural power. In England, certain causes peculiar 
to that nation contributed to induce a disposition to melancholy, 
and to produce an undefinable dread unknown at other periods 

* British Review, July, 1830, p. 35. 



298 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

of her history. Historians describe the gloomy character of the 
rigid Puritans of that time, the changes which occurred in noble 
families, whose estates had been confiscated for the profit of the 
prevailing sects, and the tales spread abroad by their former 
proprietors, secular or religious. 

[Several pages following, it has been thought unnecessary to 
translate. The obscenities of the pretended witches' sabbath, 
and other horrors enacted under the influence of supposed pos- 
session or witchcraft, are traced to the action of over-excited 
imaginations on ignorant or ill-regulated minds, and to the use 
of certain narcotic pomades or ointments, with which the sor- 
cerers anointed themselves, thereby producing horrible and sen- 
sual dreams. The appearance and adoration of the buck, the 
cat, and that which is of equal importance in sorcery, the key, 
are found amongst the divinities of ancient Egypt, and occur 
frequently on Egyptian monuments. — Tr.] 

We recognize but seldom, in the demonomaniacs of the pre- 
sent day, the obscenities which marked that period. May not 
the reason be, that erotic ideas were then more generally spread, 
in consequence of the predominance of the instinctive over the 
intellectual faculties ? 

The origin of lycantrophy is traced to the most ancient epochs 
of paganism. In this illusion, the unhappy demented person 
believed himself transformed into a man-wolf. Sometimes the 
pretended transformation was caused by beverages, and poison- 
ous ointments. The companions of Ulysses, who were meta- 
morphosed into swine, are the most ancient examples. Herodo- 
tus, in his work, describes this transformation as occurring rather 
frequently. Saint Augustin asserts that certain women in Italy 
changed themselves into horses, by the use of a sort of poison. 
But it was principally in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
that this singular illusion spread through Europe. Cynanthro- 
pes and lycanthropes abandoned their dwellings to plunge into 
forests, allowing their nails, hair, and beard to grow, mutilating, 
and even sometimes killing and devouring unfortunate children. 

Wierus relates the singular trial which occured at Besan§on, 
in 1521. It is a case of lycantrophy, which leaves no doubt of 
the madness of the accused and the ignorance of the judges. 
The inquisitor conducted the affair, and summoned the three 
criminals, Pierre Burgot, Michel Verdun, and le gros Pierre. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 299 

All three confessed they had given themselves to the devil. 
Burgot owned that he had killed a young boy with his wolf's 
claws and teeth, and would have eaten him, if the peasants 
had not chased him. Michel Yerdun said that he had killed 
a young girl who was gathering peas in a garden, and that 
he and Burgot had killed and eaten four other girls. He pointed 
out the time, the place, and the ages of four other children whom 
they had devoured. He added, that he and his companions 
used a powder which destroyed life. 

These three wehr wolves were condemned to be burned 
alive.* 

Case CXXV. In the autumn of the year XII. , a man, by 
trade a mason, fell into a state of melancholy, without any 
apparent cause. One night he had strange visions, and before 
morning had escaped into the desert. On the second day of 
his attack, he refused all nourishment ; but two days after, he 
devoured the food that was offered to him with extreme voracity ; 
he howled like a wolf, and became several times enraged, show- 
ing a disposition to bite. On the fourteenth day, at the approach 
of night, he again escaped into the fields, where he uttered 
fearful cries, which were checked by affusions of cold water. 
This singular disease terminated on the eighteenth day in a 
violent attack of fever, which lasted nearly twenty-four hours. 
His complete cure appeared finally to result from natural 
causes. f 

Several writers think that great obtuseness of feeling may 
occasion hallucinations, which chiefly present themselves under 
the form of errors of personality in a physical sense. It is 
probable that this morbid disposition existed in a certain number 
of lycantrophes, in whom a perversion of ideas were associated 
with this symptom, and occasioned their singular illusions. 

It is curious to find amongst the Abyssinians, in our own 
times, a superstition very nearly resembling that of the people 
of Europe in the Middle Ages. Like them, they believe in a 
Zoomorphism, which is a striking image of lycantrophy. Thus 
the class of pewterers and blacksmiths are generally regarded 

* Bottiger's alteste Spuren der Wolforwuth in der Griechischen Mitho- 
logie, nebst Zus'atzen von Sprengel in dessen Beitragen zur Gesch. der 
med. Friedreich's Liturtugesch. pp. 23, 27. 

f Mathey, Nouvelles recherches sur les Maladies de Tesprit, 1816, p. 96. 



300 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

as having the power of transforming themselves into hyenas 
and other ferocious animals, and of causing diseases by their 
looks. But instead of being dragged to the scaffold, like the 
wehr wolves of the Middle Ages, they live dreaded, but in 
peace.* 

Mystic ideas, from whence were derived the greater part of 
the beliefs that we have described, were extremely favorable to 
the production of hallucinations. As the conviction of their truth 
was general, and doubt was unknown, their power was unlimited. 
All minds were turned towards heaven, but, according to the 
nature of their sentiments and their impressions, some gave 
themselves up to the rigors of penitential asceticism ; fasts, 
macerations, solitude, and fear of the torments of hell, engen- 
dered in them the most fearful visions. Others, on the contrary, 
abandoning themselves to all the emotions of contemplative 
asceticism, experienced ecstasies and all the ravishment of com- 
munication with celestial beings. Amongst pagans, for the 
same reason, individuals of contracted ideas (bilious tempera- 
ment), were pursued by furies and infernal deities, whilst men 
of expansive ideas (sanguine temperament), saw sylphs, fauns, 
and the divinities of Olympus. 

A belief in spirits so ancient and so universal, the certainty 
of intercourse with fauns, sylphides, naides, and demons amongst 
the Greeks, of nymphs amongst the Romans, of gnomes and 
genii in Eastern nations, and of fairies, sylphs, angels, and 
demons, amongst the Christians, have been the origin of those 
innumerable hallucinations, with descriptions of which so many 
volumes are filled. Such are the beliefs which gave rise to 
accounts of souls in torment, entreating the intercession of 
prayer ; of spirits, who have returned to reveal some particular 
event, announce an approaching death, and return in fulfilment 
of a compact; or of the dead, who suck the blood of their living 
victims. 

It is certain that a great number of apparitions have appeared 
which, not coinciding with any particular event, have sunk into 
oblivion, whilst every publicity has been given to those which 
by chance have been realized. Of such a character is the history 
given in the Monde des Usprits, by Beaumont ; it is one of the 

* Pearce, Voyage en Abyssinie, published by Lord Valentin. British 
Review, July, 1831. Brierre de Boismont, De l'Influence de la Civilisation. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 301 

most interesting cases of the kind. The heroine of the anec- 
dote, which happened in 1662, was a daughter of Sir Charles 
Lee. No reasonable doubt can exist as to the authenticity of 
the recital, as it was written by the Bishop of Gloucester, from 
the verbal account given by the father of the young lady. 

Case CXXYI. The first wife of Charles Lee died in giving 
birth to a little girl. Lady Everard, a sister of the deceased, 
undertook to bring up and educate the child, a task which she 
faithfully performed. The young lady having arrived at a mar- 
riageable age, was betrothed to Sir William Perkins, but the 
marriage was blighted by a most extraordinary circumstance. 
One night, Miss Lee observed a light in her chamber ; she im- 
mediately called to a servant, and inquired why she had left a 
lamp burning. The servant replied that there was no other 
light in the room than the one she had just brought ; that the 
fire was entirely out, and probably her young mistress had been 
dreaming. Persuaded that such was the case, she again went 
to sleep. Towards two in the morning, she awoke, and saw a 
little woman, who told her that she was her mother ; that she 
was destined to happiness, and that she would visit her again 
the same day at noon. Miss Lee again called her servant, whom 
she desired to assist in dressing her, and passed into her boudoir. 
There she remained until nine o'clock, bringing out with her a 
sealed letter for her father. This she gave to her aunt, Lady 
Everard, related what had occurred, and requested her, when 
she was dead, to give the letter as it was addressed. The aunt, 
imagining her niece to have suddenly gone mad, sent off in- 
stantly to Chelmsford for a physician and a surgeon, w r ho 
hastened to attend. They could not discover any signs of men- 
tal alienation ; but Lady Everard, nevertheless, desired that her 
niece should be bled. The young lady having allowed them to 
act as they thought fit, requested that, the chaplain might be 
sent for to recite prayers ; on the conclusion of which, she took 
her guitar and book of psalms, and played and sang with such 
perfect melody, that her music-master, who was present, was 
both astonished and delighted. 

Towards noon, she arose, desired to be placed in a large arm- 
chair, and heaving one or two sighs, expired. She grew cold 
so rapidly that the surgeon and physician were astonished. She 
died at Waltham, in the county of Essex, three miles from 



302 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Chelmsford. The letter was sent to Sir Charles, in the county 
of Warwick; but he was so grieved at the distressing event, 
that he did not arrive until after the funeral. He had the body 
exhumed and placed by the side of his wife, at Edmonton, ac- 
cording to the request of his daughter.* 

This case appears to us to be very readily explained ; imagi- 
nation, in an impressible young girl, would be much over-excited 
as the fatal hour approached. The exaltation of the nervous 
system, in an organization probably delicate, was raised to so 
high a pitch that vital force was exhausted. As to the revela- 
tion, sensible minds will see but a fortunate coincidence, without 
which, the history would never probably have found a recorder. 

In the mountains of Scotland, and in some parts of Germany, 
a belief still exists in the reality of a wonderful apparition 
which appears, it is said, as the presage of an approaching death. 
The person under the hallucination sees another self, a figure in 
every respect similar in form, feature, action, and dress. We 
have already mentioned this phenomenon, which the Germans 
call DeutSroscopie.f 

In a very clever recent publication, we find an anecdote rela- 
tive to the famous Buckingham. Three times did Sir George 
Villiers, father of the duke, appear to an officer of the ward- 
robe, to warn him of the fate that threatened his son. But this 
officer was too low in rank to acquit himself conveniently of his 
mission, and neglected to make the warning known until the 
third appearance ; he then applied to a gentleman with whom he 
was on intimate terms, Sir Ralph Freeman, Master of the Be- 
quests, and persuaded him to demand an audience of his Grace, 
in which, if granted, he promised to reveal matters of the high- 
est importance. The officer entered into the minutest details, 
which had been communicated by the spirit, to prove to the 
duke that he was no impostor ; and it was noticed that he (the 
duke) was very melancholy after the interview. But of what 
use was the warning ? To create a vague uneasiness about a dan- 
ger, against which it was impossible to guard, since the warning 
was too mysterious to enable the duke to take suitable precau- 
tions.J 

* Hibbert, op. cit. 

f Walter Scott. A Legend of Montrose, ch. xvii. note "Wraiths. 

% George Brodie, Esq., History of the British Empire, vol. xi. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 303 

Case CXXVII. M. Bezuel, a young student, fifteen years of 
age, contracted an intimacy with another young man, named 
Desfontaines. Having talked over the compacts entered into 
between persons who promised that the one who first died should 
revisit the survivor, they entered into a similar agreement, which 
they signed with their blood (1696). Shortly after this, they 
parted, and Desfontaines went to Caen. 

In July, 1697, M. Bezuel was amusing himself with haymak- 
ing, near to the house of a friend, when he became suddenly 
faint, which was followed by a bad night's rest. Notwithstand- 
ing this indisposition, he returned to the field, and again had a 
similar attack. On the third day, the fit was more serious. "I 
lost all consciousness,'' said he. "Persons came to my assist- 
ance, but my mind was much more disturbed than it had pre- 
viously been. Those who raised me up asserted that, on being 
questioned as to where I felt pain, T replied : ' I have seen what 
I never expected to see.' I recollect neither the question nor 
answer; it agrees, however, with my remembrance of the appa- 
rition of a man who was only half of the ordinary height, but 
whose person I did not recognize. A few minutes afterwards, 
on mounting a ladder, I saw my classmate, Desfontaines, at its 
foot. At this sight, I turned giddy, my head fell between two 
of the rounds, and I fainted. They took me down, and placed 
me on a piece of wood, which served as a seat in the great 
square of the Capuchins. As soon as I was seated, I no longer 
perceived M. de Sorteville, the master of the house, nor his ser- 
vants ; but only Desfontaines, who signed for me to come to him. 
I drew back, as though I would make way for him. Those who 
were present, but whom I did not see, remarked the movement. 
As he stood still, I arose to meet him ; he took my left arm with 
his right hand, and led me about thirty paces off, to an alley, 
holding me very tightly. 

" The servants, believing that I had entirely recovered, went 
about their business, excepting a little groom, who told M. de 
Sorteville that I was talking to myself. He believed that I was 
intoxicated, and approaching, heard me ask questions and make 
replies, which he afterwards repeated. 

" My conversation with Desfontaines lasted three quarters of 
an hour. ' I agreed with you,' said he, 'that if I died first, I 
would come and tell you so ; I was drowned yesterday, at this 



304 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

hour, in the river at Caen, in company with such and such per- 
sons. It was very warm, and I took a notion to bathe, but 
fainted on entering the water. The Abbd Meniljean, my com- 
panion, plunged in to save me ; I seized him by the foot, but 
whether from fear, or as a means of remounting to the surface, 
he gave me a violent kick on the breast, which drove me again 
to the bottom of the river, which was very deep in this spot.' 

"Desfontaines," continues M. Bezuel, "was larger than in 
life. I only perceived the half of his body ; he was naked, with- 
out a hat, with his beautiful light hair, and a white paper on his 
forehead, twisted in his hair, with writing upon it, but which 
I could not decipher." 

This apparition and conversation were repeated several times. 
It is an undoubted fact, that the death of the young man soon 
became known. The celebrated Abbe' de St. Pierre, who pub- 
lished the anecdote, and vouches for its authenticity, accounts 
for it by natural causes. It is probable that the fainting of 
Bezuel was the cause of the apparitions. " I know,'' says Fer- 
riar, "from my own experience and that of others, that syncope 
is sometimes preceded by illusions and visions, which are only 
reminiscences of known objects. One fact must be noticed, 
which is, that the morbid impression often lasts long after the 
restoration of health. A man imagined, during a paroxysm of 
derangement, that a considerable property had been left to him ; 
the idea did not quit him on his recovery, and it was with diffi- 
culty that he was undeceived.* 

The remembrance of the voice and figure of an intimate friend 
may cause an hallucination. Such appears to have been the cele- 
brated apparition of Ficinus to Michel Mercatus, which is re- 
lated by Baronius. 

These illustrious friends, after a long conversation on the na- 
ture of the soul, agreed that whichever of the two died the first, 
should, if possible, appear to the survivor, and inform him of 
the nature of the other world. 

"Some time afterwards," says Baronius, "it happened that, 
whilst Michel Mercatus was studying philosophy, early in the 
morning, he suddenly heard the sound as of a horse galloping, 
which stopped at his door, and the voice of his friend Ficinus, 

* Journal de Trevaux, t. viii. p. 1724. Ferriar, op. cit. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 305 

who cried: "0 Michel, Michel! all those things are true!" 
Surprised at these words, Mercatus rose, and went to the win- 
dow. He saw his friend, with his back towards him, mounted 
on a white horse. 

Mercatus called to him and followed him with his eyes, until 
he disappeared. He soon received the news that Ficinus had 
died at Florence at the time of the apparition. The distance 
that separated them was considerable. 

This apparition, which aroused so much attention in conse- 
quence of the exalted station of the parties, may be explained 
by the following circumstances : The study of Plato and the 
idea of his friend caused an hallucination favored by the silence 
of the morning. Baronius adds that Mercatus abandoned his 
profane studies and devoted himself to theology.* 

Should circumstances, which appear to have occasioned sud- 
den conversions in unbelievers, be always referred to the influ- 
ence of mysticism, or to hallucinations of sight and hearing? 
In a religious point of view, we cannot subscribe to this opinion ; 
we are convinced that God may make use of supernatural means 
to call wandering men to himself; to believe otherwise, would 
be to reject the authority of Holy Wrifc.f 

Case CXXVIII. Colonel Gardiner had passed the evening 
amongst his gay companions. He had made an appointment 
precisely at midnight with a married woman. The company sepa- 
rated at eleven, and he, not wishing to go to his appointment be- 
fore the hour, went up to his room to amuse himself with a book. 
By chance, he took up a religious book, which his grandmother, or 
his aunt, had slipped into his portmanteau, entitled The Christian 
Soldier, or Heaven taken by' Assault. Judging, by its title, 
that he would be entertained by the use of professional phrases, 
applied in a spiritual sense, he resolved to read it carefully. 
Notwithstanding this determination, he could not fix his atten- 

* De Apparitionibus Mortuorum, vivis et pacto factis, Lips. 1709. — Baro- 
nii Annales. Baronius had this history from the grandson of Mercatus, 
prothonotary of the Church, a man of the greatest probity and learning. 

f There is, however, an important distinction to be made relative to 
mysticism. Taken in general, it is not a disease of the mind ; it rests upon 
actual facts, and supplies a real want. Mysticism is grand and beauti- 
ful; but it must be regulated. Without this check, we are liable to fall 
into exaggeration and errors of sentiment. 

20 



306 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

tion on it. "Whilst he held the book in his hand, God vouchsafed 
him a vision, which bore the happiest and most important re- 
sults. He perceived an extraordinary light fall on his book, 
which he at first attributed to the lamp, but, raising his eyes, 
he saw, to his great astonishment, our Lord Jesus Christ on the 
Cross, encircled with a glory. At the same time a voice uttered 
these words : " 0, sinner ! see to what a condition thy crimes 
have reduced me!" This apparition produced such a profound 
effect upon the colonel that he renounced his style of life, and 
became a very religious character.* 

To this example, which has been cited as a favorable interpo- 
sition of the Divinity, another has been opposed, which happened 
in the seventeenth century to one of the most powerful enemies 
of Christianity, and which resulted in an encouragement to pub- 
lish a work containing his very dangerous opinions. 

Case CXXIX. "My book, Be veritate prout distinguitur a 
revelatione verisimile possibili et a /also," relates Lord Herbert, 
"which I had commenced in England, was nearly finished; all the 
hours which I could steal from visits and negotiations were devoted 
to its completion ; this at length being achieved, I hastened to 
show it to Tilenus and to Hugo Grotius, an illustrious savant, 
who, having escaped from Holland, had taken refuge in France. 
They praised it much, and exhorted me to publish it. 

"I felt the approval of two such learned men as a great encou- 
ragement, but, on the other hand, the opposition which I foresaw 
it would encounter made me hesitate. One fine day, about 
noon, my windows being open, I took my book, knelt down, and 
pronounced aloud these words : — 

" ' 0, eternal God, Creator of the light which illuminates me, 
thou who enlightenest souls when thou wouldst, tell me by a 
celestial sign if I should publish or suppress my work — ' I had 
hardly uttered these words, than a loud, but agreeable sound, 
proceeded from heaven, which impressed me with such great 
joy, that I felt convinced that my request was granted. 

"Howsoever strange this may appear, I protest, before God, 
not only that I heard the sound, but saw, in the clearest sky on 
which I ever gazed, the spot whence it came. In consequence 

* Hibbert, Sketches of the Philosophy of Apparitions, 2d edition, Edin- 
burgh, 1825, p. 324. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 307 

of this sign, I published my book, and spread it throughout all 
Christian lands, amongst all the learned capable of reading and 
appreciating it." 

Dr. Leland, in his Essay on Deistical Writers, does not ques- 
tion the truth of the recital of the noble lord.* One cannot 
but be struck, on reading this case, with the Inconsistency of 
the human mind. Here is a man preparing to launch forth a 
work against revelation, who supplicates the Deity for a special 
revelation. In good logic, it appears to us impossible to esta- 
blish the slightest resemblance between this case and that of 
Colonel Gardiner. 

When men are influenced by superstition and terror, no ideas 
are too strange to appear to them realities. One of the most 
singular follies of this character is that known as vampirism, 
traces of which are found in the stryges of the Talmud. This 
kind of epidemic reigned in the beginning of the eighteenth 
century, in several parts of Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and 
Lorraine. The peasantry who were attacked by it believed that 
the souls of their enemies could appear to them after death, 
under different forms. Some dreamed that these malicious 
spectres took them by the throat, and, having strangled them, 
sucked their blood. Others believed that they actually saw 
these cruel monsters. 

Mystic ideas in an expansive form, by exalting the imagina- 
tion, produced those numerous instances of ecstasies of which 
we have already spoken, and whose characteristics were of a 
nature quite celestial. To this influence, must be assigned the 
apparitions and auditions of the imaginary chorus of Paracelsus, 
of the convulsionists and Shakers, the ecstatics of the Cevennes, 
the possessed of Loudun, the convulsionists of Cornouailles, and 
of the Shetland Isles, etc. 

In noting the ideas which contribute still more to the produc- 
tion of hallucinations, we have invited attention to some of the 
beliefs of the Middle Ages ; but in order to appreciate the 
influence of this era of strange deceptions, numerous errors, 
beautiful dreams, magnificent fancies, and immortal fictions, it 
appears indispensable to cast a glance on the grotesque, terrible, 
or benevolent beings, with which it was formerly peopled. f 

* Autobiography of Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, v. Hibbert, p. 227. 

f Ferdinand Denis, Le monde enchante, cosmographie ou histoire natu- 



308 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The barbarians did not only bring with them devastation and 
death ; they inculcated their religious creeds into all minds. 
The Roman people heard for the first time of Himenberg, that 
celestial city whose only access was by the rainbow; of Niflein, 
a subterranean world, traversed by poisonous streams ; of the 
wolf Fenris, whT> was strong enough to destroy the world ; of the 
serpent Yormongadur, whose folds encircled the globe ; of 
Grasvitnir, whose hissings were terrible ; and of the colossal 
Eskthirnir, the buck with the gigantic horn, whence falls the 
primitive fountain from which all streams flow. 

The Hun, born of demoniac intercourse, and who was believed 
to devour men, gave rise to the fable of the Ogre. 

In listening to such recitals, men to whom antiquity had be- 
queathed centaurs, minotaurs, satyrs, fauns, pans, and aegypans, 
and who imagined they still met with these beings in solitary 
places, could not pause on so promising a road ; marvellous crea- 
tions were therefore constantly suggested to their minds. The 
oblong coffer of Cosmao, divided into two compartments, is not 
the least curious amongst them.* 

There was suddenly a great silence. These barbarous super- 
stitions had merged into the paradise and hell of the Christian ; 
and the breath of Mohammed blew all wonderful fables to an- 
other part of the world. 

But the latter years of the ninth century were thrown into a 
state of violent perturbation by the erroneous interpretation of 
the dogmas contained in Holy Writ. All men, in the general 
consternation, looked for the end of the world. In order to form 
a just idea of the terror which brooded over Europe, the formid- 
able pictures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries must be 
studied. 

Christian belief, developed in the midst of these depressing 
feelings, and the anguish inspired by the anticipation of the 
destruction of the world, were extremely favorable to the pro- 
duction of demoniac ideas, whose rapid propagation is explained 
by the causes we have related. 

Natural history also contributed its share to enlarge the er- 
rors of imagination, by extending the field of fiction. The 

relle et fantastique du moyen age, Paris, 1843. Bekker, Le monde en- 
chante, 4 vols. 18mo. Amsterdam, 1694. 
* Letronne, Kevue des Deux Mondes. Daunon, Hist. Litt. de la France. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 309 

existence of the phoenix, the roc, and the winged serpent, were 
all sincerely believed. The bones of the mastodon were looked 
on as those of giants. The air was filled with horrible dragons, 
basilisks, and winged serpents. The caverns were inhabited by 
monsters with eyes that darted flames. The seas were the abode 
of the kraken, of the sea-monk, and of the sea-bishop. 

The Talmud improved upon these strange conceptions, by 
affirming the existence of liliths, a kind of cherubim, lamias, ser- 
pentiform spectres, and stryges, a sort of vampire, who greedily 
sucked the breasts of children. 

The discovery of America gave a new direction to the human 
mind. Adventurers roamed through a thousand perils in search 
of the El Dorado, the terrestrial paradise, and the Fountain 
of Youth. The vast forests of Malabar were said to be peopled 
with singular creatures, uniting in their fantastic forms the re- 
ligious reveries of India with those of Europe. Feijoo, the 
Voltaire of Spain, says, " Lies are like serpents, endlessly mul- 
tiplied." 

The traditions of the Middle Ages, driven out before the 
science of the sixteenth century, sought a last asylum in the 
New World, where they wellnigh recovered all their vigor. 

This sketch, too short for some, for others perhaps too long, 
appeared needful, in order to show how this union of the mar- 
vellous and the terrible, of faith and of ignorance, which dur- 
ing a lengthened period of the Middle Ages was the code of 
mankind, gave rise to a multitude of false ideas, the real causes 
of those hallucinations, traces of which are found on every page 
of history. But it must also be understood why they are not 
considered a symptom of insanity. Those who experienced 
them, yielded to the opinions of the times ; but they were no 
less capable of fulfilling the duties of social life. Their imagi- 
nations, strongly excited by recitals, beliefs, and the absence 
of all doubt, saw what others believed they had seen. The im- 
pulse, once given, was rapidly communicated ; but there was no 
incongruity in their words or their actions. The error was that 
of society, not of the individual. 

In order to complete this portion of our work, it was necessary 
to seek out the causes of the hallucinations which occurred under 
different conditions of society. What has been already said, 



310 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

exhibits the consequences attendant on beliefs, passions, prejudg- 
ments, and manners. Thus, in reading the history of apparitions 
described by the Greeks and Romans, they will be found to vary 
according to the different doctrines professed by the learned on 
this subject, which, in course of time, began to prevail amongst 
the multitude. In almost all ancient nations, they were of a 
religious character. The importance awarded to dreams in 
Egypt, Greece, and amongst the Romans, will account for the 
multitude of apparitions, warnings, and communications with 
which the history of this people abounds. This form of hal- 
lucinations showed itself with equal frequency in the Lower 
Empire. One of the monarchs most noted for his philosophic 
knowledge, Julian, saw the genius of the empire, with all the 
insignia of mourning, a few days before his battle with the Per- 
sians. 

In the ninth century, a father, inconsolable for the loss of his 
son, the Emperor Basil, of Macedonia, had recourse to the 
prayers of a celebrated pontiff,* and saw that beloved son, 
magnificently dressed and mounted on a superb horse. The 
phantom ran towards him, threw himself into his arms, and 
vanished. f 

Almost all the Eastern apparitions represented good or evil 
genii, guarding treasures or palaces, angels sent by Mohammed to 
console believers or to warn the wicked of punishments reserved 
for them. In India, where life is a long act of religious observ- 
ance, the least infraction of which is punished in the severest 
manner, we find religious hallucinations, modified by its climate 
and its dogmas. 

It only remains, in reference to the action of moral causes on 
the production of hallucinations, to speak of some particular 
influences, the study of which offers more than a general in- 
terest. 

Fear has always the same foundation, but its forms vary with 
different epochs. This sensation has created, especially since 
the revolution of 1789, a great variety of hallucinated persons, 
who believe themselves to be pursued by enemies, police officers, 

* Theodore Santabaren, Abbe, Archbishop of the Zachaites. 
f Eusebius Salverte, op. cit. V. Glycas, Annal. partie iv. p. 296. Leo 
Grammat, in vita Basil, imp. 20. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 311 

and even by public executioners. This form is, without doubt, 
frequently combined with melancholy monomania, but observa- 
tion has proved that the hallucination may exist alone. 

Case CXXX. A clerk in a house of business discovered that 
the warehouse had been robbed ; he fell into a state of deep 
despair, then exclaimed that he was sought for ; he saw the 
gendarmes surround the house ; the scaffold was prepared, 
the executioner ready to immolate him. It was in vain to 
attempt to prove to him that all this existed but in his imagina- 
tion ; he could see only the scaffold and the gendarmes. To 
escape this imaginary death, he committed suicide. This fact, 
which we noticed at the commencement of our professional 
career, put us on our guard against this class of diseases ; it 
was well that we did so ; for all patients presenting this class of 
hallucinations, have attempted to destroy themselves. 

Case CXXXI. Clergeaud being condemned to death by the 
assize court of Perigueux, on a charge of poisoning, was seized 
with a sort of vertigo on his entrance into prison. He recog- 
nized no one. An hallucination painted one of the jailers to his 
mind as the executioner 2 whom he thought every instant about 
to put him to death. 

Towards evening, Clergeaud became calm, his senses returned 
and hope re-entered his heart.* 

Madness is, more frequently than is believed, the result of 
remorse. This remark often applies to hallucinations. Semi- 
ramus saw constantly the pallid countenance of Ninus. The 
account of the death of Surgeon Manoury presents a positive 
proof of the fact, besides which it explains the hallucinations of 
several criminals. 

Case CXXXII. Manoury, the enemy of Urbain Grandier, 
was chosen on the 26th April, 1634, to examine if, as the prioress 
asserted, some part of his body was insensible. This task he 
performed with so much barbarity, that one cannot think of the 
sufferings of the unfortunate victim without shuddering with 
horror. f He repented of his cruelty; for one night about ten 
o'clock, as he was returning from a distant part of the town, 

* Gazette des Tribuneux, 2d May, 1844. 

f See the admirable episode of the torture of Urbain Grandier, in the 
Cinq-Mars of M. de Vigny. 



312 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

where lie had been to visit a patient, in company with his bro- 
ther and another man, he suddenly exclaimed, with a start : 
" Ah! there is Grandier ! What do you want with me ?" and 
immediately fell into a trembling and a frenzy, from which they 
could not recover him. They took him home, raving of Gran- 
dier, who seemed to be always before him, and put him to bed 
with the same trembling and horror. During the four days 
longer that he survived, his condition did not change. He died, 
still believing that Grandier was before him, and endeavored to 
repulse him, whilst he talked in a terrible manner.* 

Sully reports .that the lonely hours of Charles IX. became 
dreadful by a repetition of the cries and shrieks which he heard 
during the massacre of St. Bartholomew. " King Charles," 
says that illustrious minister, u hearing, on the evening of the 
day and during all the following day, accounts of the slaughter 
of old men, women, and children, took aside Maitre Amboise 
Pare, his principal surgeon, whom he much loved, although he 
was of the new religion, and said to him: 'Amboise, I do not 
know what has happened to me for the last two or three days, 
but I am deeply troubled, both in body and mind ; I am always 
in terror ; for at all times, whether asleep or awake, I seem to 
see those murdered bodies, covered with blood, and making 
hideous faces at me. I wish the old people and children had 
been spared.' "f 

When the mind is oppressed by a great crime, monomania is 
at hand, and accusing voices frequently terrify the culprit so 
greatly as to drive him mad. In this manner can be explained 
the terrors of people in a neighborhood where great massacres 
have taken place. 

Case CXXXIII. In 1623 or 1624, a man named Fletcher, a 
considerable land-owner, of Rascal, a town in Yorkshire, mar- 
ried a young woman who had formerly been on terms of inti- 
macy with Ralph Raynal, an innkeeper, living on the York road, 
about half a mile from Rascal, and whose sister lived with him. 
The connection being continued after the young woman had 

* Sauze, Essai Medico-his tori que sur les possedes de Loudun, p. 45. 
Paris, 1839. 

f Collection des Memoires relatifs a l'Histoire de France, 2 serie, t. i. 
p. 245. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 313 

married, she, not finding herself sufficiently free, projected, to- 
gether with a person named Marth Dunn, the death of her 
husband. In May, the deed was committed by Raynal and 
Dunn, by drowning Fletcher, on his return from the town of 
Herby. The woman, who was apprised of the murder, gave 
them a sack, in which they placed the body. It was buried be- 
hind Raynal's house, in a spot from whence they had torn the 
roots of an old oak and had planted it with mustard- seed, in order 
the better to conceal the crime. The neighbors were much sur- 
prised at Fletcher's absence, but his wife said that he had ab- 
sconded, to be out of the way of a writ. Things went on thus 
until the 7th of July, when Raynal, whilst saddling his horse, 
to go to Topcliffe Fair, saw the ghost of Fletcher suddenly start 
up before him. " 0, Ralph !" it said, "repent, repent, for my 
vengeance is at hand." From that time until his imprisonment, 
the spirit never left him, which made him melancholy and sleep- 
less. His sister, hearing from another person, this confession, 
and alarmed on her own account, revealed it to Sir William 
Sheffield, a magistrate, who lived at Rascal. 

They were all three arrested and put in York prison ; they 
were condemned, and executed on the spot where Fletcher was 
buried.* 

The punishment of Beaufort, the assassin of the Duke of 
Gloucester, was accompanied by terrible circumstances. A prey 
to all the agonies of despair, he offered immense riches to the 
dead, if he would grant him a respite of a few days. A few 
minutes before his death, he appeared to suffer the torment of 
the damned. With both hands spread out before him, he ex- 
claimed: "Begone ! begone ! why dost thou look at me thus ?" 
an evident proof that some horrible spectre was before him, no 
doubt that of his victim. 

M. l/Abbe* Guillon, in his Entretiens sur le Suicide, has re- 
lated the remarkable case of a duellist who had killed seventeen 
persons in single combat, and who was everywhere pursued by 
the phantoms of his victims. 

The following relation is a convincing proof of the influence 
of remorse on hallucinations: — 

Case CXXXIV. Jarvis Matcham was pay-sergeant of a regi- 

* Webster on Witchcraft, p. 296. Webster had attended the trial. 



314 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ment, and was esteemed a correct and well-behaved man. Profit- 
ing by this reputation, he found it easy to abstract a considera- 
ble portion of the money placed in his hands for the purpose of 
paying the men, engaging recruits, and other matters in his 
department. He was recalled to his regiment from a town 
where he had been raising recruits ; perhaps there were some 
suspicions against him. Matcham saw that the discovery was at 
hand, and would have deserted, but for the presence of a little 
drummer-boy, who had been sent on alone to recall him. In 
the despair inspired by his crime, he resolved to assassinate the 
poor child, and to escape with the money that still remained in 
his hands. He the more readily determined on this course, as 
he looked on the boy as a spy. Having committed the crime, 
he changed his dress, crossed the fields, and reached an inn on 
the Portsmouth road ; there he stopped, and desired to be 
aroused when the first stage passed. The boy to whom he gave 
the order did as he was desired ; and, long afterwards, recollected 
that when he shook Matcham by the shoulder, in order to 
awaken him, the first words that he uttered, were : " My God ! 
I did not kill him." 

Matcham arrived at Portsmouth by the stage, and immediately 
engaged himself as a marine. His sobriety and faithfulness 
to his duty made him equally esteemed by his superiors in this 
service as he had been in the army. He passed several years 
at sea, and was noticed for his good conduct on several occasions. 
Finally, his vessel entered Plymouth harbor ; the crew were paid 
off, and several marines dismissed as too old for service. Jar- 
vis Matcham was of the number. He resolved, with another 
marine, to visit the city, and took the road to Salisbury. At 
the distance of two or three miles from that celebrated city, 
they were overtaken by a storm, accompanied with lightning and 
such terrible claps of thunder that the conscience of the aged 
sinner began to be awakened. He exhibited an excess of terror 
very unnatural in a man familiarized with the war of the ele- 
ments, and began to look so wild, and talk so incoherently, that 
his companion easily saw he was agitated by some extraordinary 
excitement. 

Finally, Matcham complained that the stones left the road to 
run after him, and begged his comrade to walk on the other side 
of the way, to see if the stones would follow him when alone. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 315 

The marine complied, and Matcham insisted that they still fol- 
lowed him, but not his companion. "But there is something 
still worse," said he, coming close up, and speaking in a mys- 
terious undertone. "Who is that little drummer ? What does 
he mean by following us so closely?" — "I do not see any one," 
replied his comrade, struck with the contagion of superstitious 
terror evinced by his companion. "How? You do not see that 
child with bloodstained trowsers?" cried the murderer, in a tone 
which so terrified his comrade, that he conjured him, if anything 
was weighing on his conscience, to relieve his mind as much as 
possible by making a confession. 

The criminal heaved a profound sigh and declared that it was 
impossible for him any longer to endure the agonies he had suf- 
fered for several years past ; he then acknowledged the murder, 
and added that, as a considerable reward had been offered for 
his apprehension, he desired that his companion would give him 
up to the authorities in Salisbury, being desirous that an old 
comrade should profit by his unhappy fate, which now seemed 
inevitable. 

Having overcome the objections made by his friend to this 
proceeding, he was taken before a magistrate in Salisbury, where 
he made a complete confession. Before his trial, however, the 
love of life prevailing, he retracted his avowal, and declared him- 
self innocent. But proofs had been obtained, which left no 
doubt of his guilt ; witnesses from his own regiment proved his 
identity with the deserter and assassin ; the boy in the inn, 
where he had slept, recollected the remarkable words he had 
uttered on awaking. Jarvis Matcham was condemned. When 
all hope of life was over, he confirmed his first confession, and, 
to the last, persisted in the reality of the vision he had seen on 
Salisbury Plain. 

"Many similar cases," says Sir Walter Scott, "might be re- 
lated, proving that, by the will of God, the influence of a su- 
perstitious terror may be a means used by Providence to excite 
repentance in the heart of a criminal for the salvation of his 
soul, and to insure his punishment for the benefit of society." 

Physicians to the insane have all remarked that hallucinations 
are often manifested in subjects powerfully preoccupied by an 
idea, or a passion. The celebrated Esquirol says, in his work, 
that they generally bear relation to the occupations of mind 



316 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

or of body of the person affected, or that they are linked with 
the nature of the cause that has produced the overthrow of rea- 
son. " Hallucinations," he adds, "may also be the effects of 
voluntary or forced repetition of the same action of the brain."* 

When recollections and reminiscences acquire the vivacity of 
first impressions, or when the same sensations are prolonged, it 
becomes impossible to make the distinction. This happens, when 
the brain, being occupied incessantly with one object, is over- 
excited. Thoughts become as palpable to the senses of sight 
and hearing, as if the images and sounds came from without, 
and reason wanders, deceived by fallacious sensations. 

Case CXXXV. In October, 1833, a woman, aged twenty- 
eight, born in Piedmont, went to a village-ball ; she danced 
during three days in a sort of frenzy, and afterwards heard, 
without cessation, the melodies which had charmed her. They 
were Montferrines, and each gave place successively to the 
other. This hallucination affected the vital functions, and 
terminated in nervous consumption. Dr. Brosserio observed that 
the musical sounds increased with the disease, and did not abate, 
until they ceased in death. f 

Case CXXXVI. Tasso, whose passion for the Princess 
d'Este was the origin of all his misfortunes, finally believed that 
there was a familiar genius who delighted to converse with him ; 
he pretended to have learned things from it, which he had nei- 
ther read nor heard, and which none had known before him. 
J. B. Manso, his friend, said that, being one day at Bisaccio, 
near Naples, he endeavored to convince him that he labored 
under an illusion ; when the poet replied : " Since nothing that 
I can say will satisfy you, you shall be convinced by expe- 
rience, and you shall see, with your own eyes, that spirit of 
which I speak." — "I accept the offer," said Manso, and on 
the following day the friends, being seated near to the fire, he 
turned his eyes towards a window, on which he fixed them so 
attentively that he ceased replying to my remarks, and, in all 
probability, no longer heard them. 

" At length, he said : ' There is my familiar spirit, who is so 
polite as to come and converse with me ; look at him, and wit- 

* Esquirol, Des Maladies Mentales, 2 vols. 8vo. fig. 1838. 
f Journal de Paris, 23d Aug. 1831. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 317 

ness the truth of what I told you.' I turned my eyes towards 
the spot pointed out, but saw nothing but the rays of the sun 
streaming into the room. Whilst I gazed all around, and could 
not discover anything unusual, I perceived that Tasso was en- 
gaged in a deep conversation; for, although I only saw and 
heard him, his discourse was arranged as though two persons 
were conversing ; he alternately interrogated and replied. The 
subjects of his conversation were so exalted, the style so sublime 
and so extraordinary, that surprise set me beside myself. I 
neither dared speak to him, nor inquire where the spirit was 
with which he had spoken. 

" Astounded at that which passed beneath my eyes, I remained 
for a length of time entranced ; doubtless, until the departure of 
the spirit. Tasso aroused me by inquiring : ' Have you at 
length dismissed your doubts V 'Far from it,' I replied ; 'they 
are but strengthened; I have heard wonderful things; but I 
have not seen what you led me to expect.' "* 

Causes apparently slight may favor the development of hal- 
lucinations. Those which we will now mention, have been 
pointed out by different authors. Reading and conversation, at 
night, on very striking subjects, prolonged unreasonably, have 
frequently occasioned in impressible persons, restlessness, ter- 
rors, and even visions. Conolly speaks of children, who, under 
these circumstances, have wakened up from fearful dreams, and 
with whom false impressions of surrounding objects have con- 
tinued for some time. We attended a very enlightened man, 
who, for several years subsequent to a severe fever, was attacked 
every night with inexpressible agonies of terror, momentarily 
expecting to see apparitions. He recognized this state as a 
consequence of his illness, but as soon as darkness came on all 
his firmness vanished. 

SECOND DIVISION.— PHYSICAL CAUSES. 

The enumeration of the moral causes which occasion halluci- 
nations has sufficiently proved that exclusive ideas, strong pas- 
sions, and great preoccupations, may lead to this result. To 

* Vie de Tasse, par Manso. La Th6orie des Songes, par I/Abbe Kieh- 
ard, 1766, p. 234. Hoole's Life of Tasso, p. 48. The Friend, by S. T. 
Coleridge, vol. xi. p. 236. Boil's Fieberlehre, Halle, 1802. 



318 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

record other cases would be a needless repetition. We will pro- 
ceed to examine the physical causes which have most frequently 
given rise to hallucinations. They may be classed in five sec- 
tions. To the first belong hallucinations derived from the influ- 
ence of particular physiques, such as inheritance, the sexes, 
climate, etc. ; to the second, those occasioned by mechanical 
causes, by alcoholic drinks, and narcotic substances ; to the third, 
those in connection with insanity ; to the fourth, those which 
combine with nervous diseases (alienation excepted) ; and lastly, 
to the fifth, hallucinations produced by acute or chronic inflam- 
matory or other diseases. Several of these points having been 
already treated on in this work, we content ourselves with a 
general description. 

First Section. — In this catalogue, we shall have to seek for 
the influence exercised on the production of hallucinations by 
inheritance, the sexes, age, temperament, professions, physiolo- 
gical causes, seasons, climate, and situation ; but of these causes 
there are some which afford us none, and others but slight in- 
formation. We must not lose sight of the fact that hallucina- 
tion is frequently but a complication, a symptom ; in which case 
its isolated study presents extreme difficulties. We cannot esta- 
blish, by statistics, the power of inheritance on hallucinations, 
because they almost always exist with insanity. Inheritance 
but slightly affected the epidemic hallucinations and illusions of 
the Middle Ages. M. Soudan has not described the action of this 
cause on the epidemic ecstasy which he had observed in Sweden. 

In order to understand this influence fully, it should be studied 
in individuals who have but simple hallucinations, and in those 
monomaniac hallucinists who have a very decided form of insa- 
nity. It is undeniable that they often occur in the sons of those 
who have experienced this double condition, but as, in this case, 
they are usually but a symptom of a principal disease, this 
knowledge is but of slight importance. 

We have had the opportunity of noticing two cases of heredi- 
tary hallucination, and it may easily be understood that this 
nervous disease may like others be transmitted. 

The father of Jerome Garden was subject to see apparitions ; 
his son equally so.* 

* De la Subtilite, traduction de le Blanc, 1441, liv. xix. p. 462, et seq. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 319 

Catherine de Medicis had an hallucination respecting Pierre de 
l'Estoile ; and her son, Charles IX., had one on the very night 
of Saint Bartholomew. 

We have not noticed anything special in hallucinations, as 
regards sexes ; out of 136 individuals admitted into our esta- 
blishment, 63 were males, 73 females. 

It is not so, when we examine the sexes relatively to the 
nature of hallucinations. On glancing through history, we 
shall recognize at every page the predominance of erotic ideas 
in women. 

Incubes, those infernal beings, sometimes visible, sometimes 
invisible, whose amorous assaults have been so vividly described 
by Bodin, Boquet, and Delroi, are everywhere established. 
Among the Jews, they were named Asmodeus, Haza, and Lilith ; 
with the Greeks, syrens, nymphs, orcades, dryads, nereids, 
satyrs, and sylvans. Since the discovery of America, there 
was a much-dreaded incubus, the god Cocota. Bodin relates 
that in the space of one year at Rome 82 persons were possessed 
by the incubes.* 

Coelius Aurelianus relates, after Silimachus, the partisan of 
the doctrines of Hippocrates, that the incubes prevailed in so con- 
tagious a form at Rome, that many persons died of it.f M. Ma- 
caire has shown that this hallucination was not uncommon in the 
provinces and religious districts, and that the neglect of modern 
authors on this point arose from the fact of their own observa- 
tions being chiefly made in large cities. 

Hallucinations induced by erotic ideas still exist, but they are 
connected with the style of education, with ideas and situation. 
Their greater rarity amongst men is owing to the greater facili- 
ties they possess for gratifying their passions. 

Age. — Hallucinations being most frequently produced by 
moral causes, and being often combined with alienation, they 
appear in accordance with the mode in which that affection is 
developed; and also exhibit themselves at that period of life 
which it affects. There are numerous exceptions to this rule, 
since science points out many examples of hallucinations occur- 
ring in very young children. 

* Bodin, Angevin, 1 vol. large 8vo. Paris, 1587, liv. ii. chap. 7. 
f Coelius Aurelianus, chron. morb. liv. i. chap, iii., de incubone, Lyon, 
1567. 



320 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Case CXXXVII. About twelve years ago we saw, in the 
City Asylum, a young lady of seven years of age, whose mother 
and grandmother were insane, and had hallucinations. This 
child had a most intelligent expression of countenance, with a 
high forehead and sparkling eyes. Her conversation, very supe- 
rior to that of children of her age, astonished all who heard 
her. There was in her observations, questions, and replies, a 
sort of intuition of futurity ; she seemed to divine things, and 
was a subject of wonder to every one. 

She was singularly restless, and always wishing to move from 
place to place. If recalled, she became angry, and very de- 
structive. She was occasionally subject to attacks, which came 
on in the following manner : Her vivacity and restlessness in- 
creased ; her words were abrupt and jerked out ; she then fell 
into a sort of ecstasy ; her eyes became fixed upwards, and 
a happy smile animated her features ; she then spoke with 
an earnest tone: "Do you see," she would say, "those angels 
in heaven; they are crowned with flowers; they come towards 
me; they fetch me." Frequently she would keep silence, as if 
plunged in a sort of abstraction ; she would then point to heaven 
with her finger, calling to the angels. In two or three hours, the 
vision would vanish. During the attack, this young girl was as 
white as wax, her skin cold, and her pulse scarcely sensible ; 
when it passed off, she slept. On awaking, her agitation re- 
turned and lasted for several days. Her conversation was some- 
what incoherent ; she did not seem to understand clearly what 
was said to her, and gave singular replies. All went on as 
usual until another attack, which shortly occurred. 

With infants, hallucinations may be occasioned by fear, or 
chastisement ; they occur when awake ; they also appear during 
sleep, and continue for some time after awaking. 

Case CXXXVIIL A girl of nine or ten years old had passed 
her birthday with several young companions, in all kinds of 
childish amusements. Her parents, who were very ignorant 
people, persisted in telling her stories of the devil, hell, and 
eternal damnation. At night, on going to her room, the devil 
appeared and threatened to devour her. She uttered a violent 
shriek, flew to her parents, and fell, as if dead, at their feet. 
Several hours elapsed before she could be recovered. This child 
afterwards related what had happened, saying that she was cer- 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 321 

tain of being damned. The circumstance was the prelude to a 
Ions: and serious nervous disorder.* 

Case CXXXIX. A young child, between nine and ten years 
of age — delicate, lymphatic, sanguine, and very impressible — 
having been severely reprimanded for a childish fault, went to 
bed with a heavy heart. Towards the middle of the night, his 
parents were suddenly awakened by sobs. They ran to his bed- 
side, and found him weeping and struggling, and making efforts 
to rise. On being questioned, his words were at first confused ; 
with staring eyes he replied that he was much tormented ; that 
there were merchants there, who frightened him very much, and 
he entreated that they might be sent away. " My dear child," 
said his parents, " do you not see that your father and mother 
are beside you?" " Yes ; but the men are there ; make them 
go away!" " Look about ; you are in your bed, in your own 
room, which is lighted.'' " Yes, I know that, but still the mer- 
chants will not go." " Well, you must get up, and we will have 
tea together." "Yes, I would rather get up." His tears and 
terror continued for a short time, and then all was over. 

In Hibbert's work there is a very interesting case of halluci- 
nation. The French author, from whom he extracted it, thus 
relates it in the Mercure Galant of 1G90: — 

Case CXL. " When very young, I was sent to a town seven 
leagues distant from my native place. My father's object was 
to wean me from home, and to have me taught to write. Five 
or six months afterwards, I was taken to the house of a rela- 
tive, where my father, who had just returned from the army, 
sent for me to join him. He examined my copy-books, and find- 
ing them very well done, expressed some doubts as to their 
authenticity. As he was about to pass the afternoon out in 
company with the mistress of the house, he desired me to write 
ten or twelve lines in his absence, to relieve his suspicions. Im- 
mediately after the departure of my father, I went up to the 
room which was prepared for me ; and having all my materials, 
I sat down before an arm-chair, on which I placed my paper 
and ink. 

" Whilst I was engaged in writing, I thought I heard persons 
on the staircase carrying corn into the loft ; I quitted my seat, 

* Psychological Magazine, vol. iv. part i. p. 70. V. Crichton. 

21 



322 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

and, raising one corner of the tapestry, I saw a little open 
room, and there was my father engaged in conversation with the 
mistress of the house. Having seen them get into the carriage, 
and leave the chateau, I was very much surprised to see them 
there. Terror was added to my astonishment ; I let the tapes- 
try fall, and, leaving the room, ran rapidly down stairs. 

" The housekeeper, whom I met, noticing my altered looks, 
inquired the cause. I related all that had passed. She told me 
that I had been dreaming, for that the Marchioness and my 
father would not yet be back for an hour. I remained near the 
room-door, until I saw them. The sight of them contributed not 
a little to increase my distress ; however, I said nothing to my 
father; after supper, he desired to send me to bed before him, but 
I had only courage to leave the room, and wait outside until I 
could go up stairs with him. He was much astonished to find 
me there, and inquired the cause. After some frivolous excuses, 
I was obliged to confess that I had seen spirits in the room. He 
ridiculed me, and asked where I had learned such tales. I re- 
lated my adventure ; no sooner had he heard it, than, in order 
to undeceive me, he took me into the loft. I was then con- 
vinced that it was not intended for corn ; that there neither was 
any in it nor had there ever been. 

"My father then took me back to the chamber, and desired 
me to point out where I had raised the tapestry and seen the 
room; I searched for it in vain; nor could I find any other door 
to our room than that which opened on to the staircase. Such 
very different arrangements to what I had imagined alarmed 
me still more, and I concluded, from what I had heard of goblins, 
that it was they who had thus deceived me. My father used 
every endeavor to persuade me that all that was said of those 
beings was purely fabulous, and that the fact was I had gone to 
sleep over my work. ' You dreamed, ' said he, ' all that you thought 
you saw and heard ; the influence of surprise and fear on your 
imagination produced the effect of reality. I had much difficulty 
in acknowledging this reasoning, but was finally obliged to con- 
fess that it was just. I frankly own that the impression of this 
dream was so strong that, had not the falsity of the apparition 
been demonstrated by all the circumstances I have related, I 
should still believe it to have been reality." 

There is no doubt that this was not a dream, but an hallucina- 



CAUSES OP HALLUCINATIONS. 323 

tion. I could mention several similar cases, which have been 
produced by vivid preocupation, by terror, by the fear of reproof, 
and alarm caused by darkness and the silence of night. 

Hallucinations have often been observed, in children, in epi- 
demic ecstasies. Authors, who have written the history of the 
Shakers of the Cerennes and the preachers of Sweden, agree 
in saying that very young children, of five, six, and seven years 
had visions, saw angels, and heard celestial voices. May not 
this morbid disposition be a consequence of the natural excita- 
bility of that age, augmented by a Protestant religious educa- 
tion, and favored by external impressions ? 

Since the publication of these remarks concerning the hallu- 
cinations of childhood, Dr. Sharp, the younger, has published 
observations upon the hallucinations of children only eighteen 
months old. 

We have not sufficient information to enable us to judge how 
much temperament has to do with actual hallucinations; but on 
consulting the biography of celebrated men, who have exhibited 
this remarkable phenomenon, we have observed that, in the 
majority of cases, the bilious temperament was the prevail- 
ing type. The ancients considered the melancholic tempera- 
ment to be one of the attributes of genius. Aristotle enume- 
rates among melancholic temperaments, Hercules, Bellerophon, 
Ajax, Empedocles, Socrates, and Plato himself,* which, in our 
opinion, implies that great men of this temperament, by the 
tension of their minds, and the fixedness and tenacity of their 
ideas, are disposed to have their thoughts highly colored and to 
take them for realities; to them, they are the luminous cloud, 
which guided the Israelites in the desert. "Everything," says 
M. Lelut, " in the intellectual acts of the melancholic, is pic- 
tured out and takes a distinct form. Sentiments and ideas are 
transformed into real external sensations, as distinct as the ob- 
jects themselves; thought appears to be materialized, pictured, 
made a representative sign, a sound, an odor, a taste, a tangible 
sensation." 

The professions do not offer anything very precise. A priori, 
those which the most develop imagination appear the most fa- 

* See the translation of the (Euvres completes de Platon, by M. Cousin. 
This is the finest monument that has been raised to the glory of this phi- 
losopher. 



324 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

vorable to hallucinations. In support of this opinion, we could 
name several poets who are hallucinists, and whose delirium is 
evidently the result of their works. The action of civil society, 
hygienic habits and seasons, not having been sufficiently studied, 
we content ourselves with a slight mention of them. 

There is no doubt of the influence of climate on hallucina- 
tions. The European character is neither that of the Asiatic 
nor the African. Their expression of countenance, actions, and 
temperaments differ ; their modes of seeing and thinking are no 
less distinct. There is no doubt that forms of government con- 
tribute to impress a special stamp on nations ; but we are no 
less convinced that ideas vary according to the peculiar charac- 
ter of the individual. As a proof of this action of climate, we 
need only refer to the theological and cosmogonical creations of 
the North, whose physiognomy is so gigantic, savage, and terri- 
ble; to the impressibility of the Laplanders, Ostyaks, and Sa- 
moeides, and to that world of invisible beings who yet people 
their solitudes.* In comparing these conceptions with those of 
the enchanted worlds of Greece and America, there is no one but 
will recognize a perfect harmony existing between the creations 
and the character of the respective countries. The influence of 
climate on the imagination did not escape St. Cyprian, who said 
that the Christians who suffered martyrdom in Africa were more 
subject to celestial visions than those who underwent it in other 
countries of the Roman Empire. f 

This question, on which we do not, however, possess sufficient 
information, is worthy of notice ; hereafter, it may be studied 
out more completely. 

Hallucinations, viewed in regard to situation, present very 
remarkable differences ; the hallucinations of cities are often 
distinguished from those of the country by very sensible shades. 
Thus, whilst the personality of passions, the absence of belief, 
and doubt, will be reflected on the first, on the second a charac- 
ter of ignorance and superstition will be imprinted. The fan- 
tastic traditions of the Middle Ages are far from being effaced 
in Europe. The most civilized countries, France, England, and 

* The northern countries have long been regarded as the dwelling-place 
of demons and magicians. Broc. Essai sur les Races Humaines, conside- 
red sous les Rapports Anatomique et Philosophique, 1836, 1 vol. 8vo. 

f In Actis Martyrum, p. 87. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 325 

Germany, could produce volumes. On this subject travellers 
may be consulted, who have amused themselves with collecting 
popular traditions ; one of them relates the following as a belief 
of Franche Comte: " On the platform of Haute-Pierre, another 
Melusina is sometimes seen to pass, a being half woman and 
half serpent : it is the Vouivre. She has no eyes, but a large 
carbuncle in her forehead guides her like a brilliant orb, day 
and night. On bathing in the rivers, she is obliged to lay the 
carbuncle on the ground, and if she could then be secured, the 
whole race of genii could be commanded, and all the treasures 
brought forth from the mountains; but it is an adventure too 
dangerous to be attempted ; for at the least noise, the Vouivre 
darts from the river, and woe to him whom she encounters."* 

The English sailor, a stranger to all other fear, owns the 
dread with which Old Nick (the devil) inspires him ; he looks on 
him as the author of almost all the various calamities to which 
his precarious life so constantly exposes him. 

The Bar Guest, or Bhar Ghiest, a name under which this 
spirit is generally known in several districts of England, parti- 
cularly in Yorkshire, is also called Dobie ; it is a local spectre 
haunting a particular spot, under different shapes, and is, as its 
name indicates, a divinity of Teutonic origin. f 

Solitude is an influence that attaches itself to places. In fact, 
it seldom fails to produce a sort of hallucination or ecstasy, 
especially in very imaginative persons. The recitals made in 
the Eastern deserts, and the faith of the individuals who traverse 
them, reveal the supremacy of this cause ; but it is evident from 
observation that they vary according to situation, and that the 
hallucinations of the steppes of the North, are not those of the 
burning plains of the South. 

In pointing out hallucinations caused by physical excitement, 
we would remind our readers of those which can be produced at 

* Xavier Marmier, Souvenirs de Voyages et Traditions Populaires, p. 73. 

f On this interesting subject may be consulted Les recits de la muse 
populaire, par M. Emile Souvestre, Revue des Deux Mondes, t. iii. 850, p. 
243, etc. Les visions de la nuit dans les campagnes, par Georges Sand, 
who has highly commended our work. Illustration, 13th December, 1851. 
Erreurs et prejuges des Paysans, par M. J. Laprade. Illustration, No. 453, 
454, 455, and 460, 1851. 



326 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

will, by attracting the sun on to a plate of glass, and instantly 
directing the eyes to the darkest corner of the room. 

Amongst other facts relative to this experiment, Darwin relates 
the following : " I covered a piece of paper of four inches square 
with yellow, and wrote in the middle, in capital letters, in blue, 
the word BANKS. Sitting down, with my back towards the 
sun, I gazed intently for a minute on the middle letter, N. 
Having closed my eyes, and covered them with my hand, I 
distinctly perceived the word in yellow letters on a blue ground ; 
and then opening my eyes, and looking on a wall about twenty 
paces distant, I read the word Banks, considerably enlarged, 
written on the wall in letters of gold. 

" A friend of mine had been very attentively examining, with 
his head lowered, a small engraving of the Virgin and Child. 
On raising his head, he was surprised to see, at the end of the 
room, a female figure, of the size of life, with a child in her arms. 
The first surprise over, he understood the source of the illusion, 
and remarked that the figure corresponded exactly with that in 
the engraving. The illusion lasted for two minutes."* 

The state of the atmosphere may give rise to singular visions; 
all who have crossed the deserts and the sea, know the pheno- 
menon of the mirage. General Daumas has related some curious 
examples in his translation of the Voyage of the Arab Sid-el-ag- 
Mohammed. The military, during their campaigns in Africa 
and Egypt, mostly saw fountains, rivers, trees, towns, armies, 
and fantastic creations, which on their approach changed into 
burning and arid sands. 

The same phenomenon may be observed on ascending into the 
air. 

La Gazette de Mons has published, in relation to a balloon 
ascension by Mr. Green, some extracts from a report that Dr. 
B. addressed to the Society of Natural Sciences in London : — 

" A curious effect of light," says that physician, "was then 
presented to us ; the air was suddenly illuminated with such a 
dazzling light, and our eyes acquired such a singular aberration 
of vision, that all objects lately microscopic acquired colossal 
proportions, and forms so capricious, that we should have consi- 
dered ourselves under the influence of a dream if the pheno- 

* Abercrombie, op. cit. p. 65. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 327 

menon had not been described by the faculty, under the term 
diachroinatopsia. 

" In like manner the race of miners, usually so swarthy on ac- 
count of the dust of the coal they constantly absorb, appeared to 
us of a dazzling whiteness ; women dressed in black were white 
as vestal virgins. In the midst of these transformations of color, 
there glided monstrous forms of goats, mastodons, and rhinoce- 
roses, looking with eyes of wonder on all these pretty women ; and 
there were even turkeys, who flew proudly amongst them. My 
friend M. believed himself under the influence of hallucination ; 
but Mr. Green told us he had already witnessed a similar spec- 
tacle, which appeared to him so extraordinary that he had not 
dared to speak of it, for fear of being taken for an illuminist. 
I explained to him that the phenomenon, howsoever wonderful, 
had already been described by men of acknowledged veracity. 

" In ten or twelve minutes, the light diminished, the picture 
darkened, and was finally extinguished."* 

Second Section. — This second division of physical causes, 
which may give rise to hallucinations, comprises mechanical 
causes, alcoholic drinks, certain gases, some kinds of plants, and 
narcotic and venomous substances. Amongst mechanical causes 
which favor the presence of hallucinations, must be noticed pres- 
sure exercised on the organs of sense, their irritation from 
foreign bodies, concussion of the brain, hanging, abstinence, and 
starvation. 

A miner was buried for twelve days in a gallery, with no 
nutriment but water, which fell, drop by drop, into his hand. 
During all this time, he was not depressed ; for, whenever he 
thought of the distress of his wife and children, he heard celes- 
tial voices, which calmed his anguish.f 

M. Savigny was wrecked in the Medusae frigate. When on 
the raft, a prey to all the horrors of famine, he appeared to see 
earth around him, covered with fine plantations, and was in com- 
pany with beings most agreeable to his senses. He reasoned on 
his condition, and felt that the exercise of strong resolution alone 
could extricate him from this species of deception. Some of his 
companions in misfortune believed themselves on board the Me- 

* Debates of the 4th of November, 1850. 

f Medical and Physical Journal, by William Hutchinson, February, 
1820, vol. xliii. No. 252. 



328 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

dusae, surrounded by all accustomed objects; others saw ships, and 
invoked the aid of those on board, or a raft, on which stood a 
superb city. M. Correard believed himself to be travelling over 
the beautiful country of Italy.* M. Savigny remarks, that it 
was during the night that he and his companions were attacked 
with dementia. On the return of day, they were much calmer, 
but darkness brought confusion again into their weakened senses. 
" I noticed in my own case," he adds, " that my imagination was 
much more excited in the silence of the night ; then, everything 
appeared unnatural and fantastic. "f 

Abstinence must have been a powerful aid to the hallucina- 
tions of the monks and hermits of the Thebaide. 

The influence of alcoholic liquors has been sufficiently demon- 
strated in what we have said on Delirium Tremens ; we will not 
return to this subject beyond making a simple remark. It is 
not unusual for persons who have been addicted to drinking, 
and leave it off suddenly, to become subject to hallucinations ; 
whereas, if they discontinued the practice by degrees, they 
would not experience any suffering. 

The action of deutoxide of azote on the system merits parti- 
cular attention. Sensations and ideas are simultaneously aug- 
mented to a very high degree ; the mind gradually loses all or 
the greater portion of its actual impressions, more especially 
those which are painful or disagreeable ; these are replaced by 
gay and pleasing images. Sir Humphrey Davy relates that, in 
an experiment of this kind, he no longer felt any connection 
with external objects ; a series of visible and animated images 
passed rapidly through his mind, united with words, in such a 
manner as to produce entirely novel perceptions. " I existed," 
said he, " in an unknown world of affinities and ideas. On com- 
ing to myself, I exclaimed, ' Nothing exists but thoughts ; the 
universe is composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures, and 
pains.' " The visionary world into which the English savant 
was introduced was only the personification and vivification of 
his ideas. { 

* Account of the wreck of the Medusae, 4th edition, 1821, pp. 121, 122. 

f Essay read in 1818, to the Faculty of Paris, by M. Savigny, Surgeon 
on board the Medusae frigate. 

% To these substances must be added preparations of lead, carbonic acid 
gas, the white oxide of arsenic, belladonna, hyoscyamus, etc. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 329 

Of all substances which act on the organization, in causing 
illusions and hallucinations, none are more remarkable than 
opium and haschisch. In a work, entitled The English Opium- 
Eater, we find a well- written account of the sensations experi- 
enced by the author after a prolonged use of this drug. 

Case CXLI. " The first thing which caused me to remark a 
notable change in myself, was the return of those visions to 
which childhood alone, or a high state of. irritability, is subject. 
At night, when awake in my bed, long processions in mournful 
pomp passed before me. I listened to interminable stories, sad- 
der and more solemn than those told to Priam or (Edipus. At 
the same time I observed a change in my dreams ; a theatre 
seemed suddenly to have opened in my brain, and presented 
me with spectacles of more than human splendor. The four 
following facts may be mentioned as remarkable. At the moment 
when the creations of the faculty of sight seemed to augment, 
a kind of sympathy was established between my real state and 
my dream state. Every object which I happened to call up and 
voluntarily retrace in darkness, was immediately transformed into 
an apparition. I dreaded to exercise this formidable power ; for 
as soon as anything presented itself to my eyes, I had only to 
think of it in the dark, when it rose up like a phantom, and, by 
a consequence apparently inevitable, being once thus traced in 
imaginary colors, it acquired, like a word written in sympathetic 
ink, an insupportable effulgence, which overwhelmed me. 

"This, like all the other changes, was accompanied by inquie- 
tude and deep melancholy, impossible to describe. Every night 
I appeared to descend, not metaphorically, but literally into 
fathomless abysses, from whence I had no hope of emerging. 
Even on awaking, I did not believe that I had risen. 

"The feeling of space, and subsequently that of time, were 
both excessively augmented. Buildings and mountains towered 
in proportions too vast for sight to measure. The plain spread, 
and was lost in immensity. This, however, alarmed me less 
than the prolongation of time ; I sometimes thought that I had 
lived eighty or one hundred years in a single night ; I even had 
one dream of thousands of years, and others which passed the 
bounds of all that man could calculate. 

"The most minute circumstances of childhood, and forgotten 
scenes of my earliest years, were often revived in my dreams; 



330 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

I could not recall them, for had they been repeated to me the 
next day, I should vainly have endeavored to recollect them, as 
forming part of my experience. But placed before me as they 
were in dreams and apparitions, and clad in all their surround- 
ing circumstances, I recognized them instantly. One of my rela- 
tives told me that having, when a child, fallen into a river, he saw, 
when on the point of drowning, and the moment before he was 
unexpectedly rescued, the whole of his life, even his most trivial 
faults, presented to him as in a mirror, and that he felt the 
singular power of grasping the whole as well as a single circum- 
stance. I give full credit to this assertion after my own expe- 
riences of opium. ... I find the same idea carried out in modern 
books, accompanied by a remark which I believe to be equally 
true, namely, that the dread book, spoken of in Holy Writ, is 
the conscience of each individual.* 

" Together with the power of enlarging and multiplying, 
architecture was introduced into my dreams. During the latter 
part of my disease particularly, I saw cities and palaces such as 
no eye ever witnessed, but in the clouds. Lakes and immense 
sheets of water succeeded to my architectural dreams. For two 
months, I suffered horrible pains in my head. The waters 
changed their character ; they were now seas and oceans. Again, 
a worse change took place, which threatened distressing conse- 
quences, and which, in fact, did not leave me, until my disease 
was cured. Hitherto, the human countenance had mingled in 
my dreams, but without exciting any alarm ; but now, what I 
shall call the tyranny of the human countenance began to be 
developed. It was on the restless waves of the ocean that it 
first appeared; the sea was as it were paved with innumerable 
faces, all turned upward, weeping, distracted, enraged, rising by 
thousands, by myriads, by generations, by ages. My imagina- 
tion was boundless, my soul flowed on with the waves. 

" Having, in my youth, seen a dead body laid on a table for 
dissection, this old impression gave rise to a dream which re- 
curred very frequently. It appeared to me that I was in bed, 
and had awakened. In leaning on my hand, in order to adjust 
mj pillow, something soft seemed to give way beneath it. It 

* This idea is expressed in all languages, as is proved by the Arabian 
proverb, cited by General Daumas. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 331 

was a corpse stretched by my side. I was, lioweyer ? neither 
alarmed nor astonished. I took it in my arms, and carried it 
into an adjoining room, saying to myself: c I will lay it there on 
the floor ; it is impossible that it can come in again, if I take the 
key out of the door.' 

" Upon that, I slept again, and was again aroused. It was 
by the noise of an opening door ; and this idea filled me with 
a horrible sensation. Then I saw the same dead body come in 
which I had carried away. Its action was singular ; it was that 
of a man whose bones had been taken out, and who, in his en- 
deavors to support himself by his pliant and flexible muscles, 
was ready to fall at each step. However, it succeeded in reach- 
ing me, and stretched itself upon me. It then became a horri- 
ble nightmare, inexpressibly disgusting; for, besides the weight 
of the formless mass, a pestilential odor arose from the kisses 
with which it covered me. At other times it would lean over 
my shoulder, and read the book which I held in my hand. I 
felt its disgusting beard scrape my throat and my cheek. 

"The terror inspired by such a vision may be imagined; I would 
remain immovable in my seat, not daring to turn the page, with 
my eyes fixed on the terrible apparition which I saw in the glass 
opposite. A cold sweat poured from my whole body ; then the 
door would open, and I saw (still in the mirror) a long frightful 
procession of horrible skeletons enter, each carrying its head in 
one hand, and in the other a long taper, which shed a red and 
quivering flame, and spread a dull and bluish light like the rays 
of the moon. They moved around the chamber, which, from 
being warm before, now became chill ; some came and seated 
themselves on the dim and black hearth, and holding out their 
long and livid hands to warm, turned towards me, saying : 'It 
is cold.' " 

We have already noticed an apparition of this nature, which 
happened to a celebrated professor. (The dose taken by the 
opium-eater varied from 50 to 60 grains a day, and sometimes 
reached 150.)* 

* The English Opium-Eater, 1 vol. 12mo. This description, which we 
read with the liveliest interest, and which is very minute, presents several 
points of resemblance with hallucination and nightmare, of which it exhi- 
bits many of the phenomena. Many of the symptoms also occur in the 
use of the haschisch. See an Essay on the Use of Opium, Paris, 1834 3 by 



332 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

I have somewhat dilated on this subject, because the class of 
opium-eaters is considerable in England, and none can tell the 
number of theriakis in the East. Dr. Pocqueville, in his Travels 
in the Morea, draws a frightful picture of the effects of opium on 
individuals who yield to the daily use of this preparation. Such 
is their passion for it, that not all the certainty of death, and 
the infirmities which precede it, can check their indulgence in 
this fatal poison. 

Case CXLII. This physician relates the following : An En- 
glish ambassador, recently sent to India, was conducted, on his 
arrival at the palace of the sovereign, through a suite of deco- 
rated apartments, filled with richly dressed officials, into a small 
room, the ornaments and furniture of which infinitely surpassed 
in splendor those which he had already seen. 

He was left alone. Shortly afterwards, two men of distin- 
guished appearance entered ; they preceded a litter borne by 
slaves, and covered with silks and cashmeres of immense value. 
On this couch a human form was extended, which might have 
been taken for a corpse, had not the head moved at each step 
of the bearers ; two officers held a little tray of gold filagree, 
on which was a cup and phial filled with a bluish liquid. 

The ambassador, believing himself to be the involuntary wit- 
ness of some dismal ceremony, moved to retire ; but he was 
quickly undeceived by seeing the officers raise the apparently 
inanimate head, and thrust the tongue back into the mouth, from 
which it protruded, having placed thereon a certain quantity of 
black liquid ; then closing the jaws, gently rubbed the throat to 
make it descend. When this operation had been repeated five 
or six times, the figure opened and closed its eyes voluntarily ; 
it then swallowed a large dose of liquid, and in less than an hour 
an animated being was seated on the couch, having recovered 
color, and, in some measure, speech. He then addressed him- 
self in Persian to the envoye, and inquired the motives of his 
visit. In two hours more, this extraordinary person was entirely 
active, with his mind capable of undertaking the most difficult 
affairs. The English ambassador took the liberty of making 
some inquiries on the scene which he had witnessed. " Sir," 

Dr. Botta, formerly our schoolmate, now consul in Jerusalem, to whom the 
discovery of Nineveh is due. See also a Treatise by Mr. Lee. 






CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 333 

he replied, "lama confirmed opium-eater ; it is by degrees 
that I have fallen into this deplorable excess. Three parts of 
the day I pass in the state of stupor in which you saw me. In- 
capable of moving or speaking, I am, nevertheless, conscious, 
and the time passes in delightful visions ; but I should never 
awake, had I not zealous and affectionate attendants, who watch 
over me with a religious care. So soon as they find, by the state 
of my pulse, that the pulsation of my heart is about to cease, 
they make me swallow opium, and revive me in the manner you 
witnessed. For the last four hours I have swallowed several 
ounces ; and in a little time I shall fall into my habitual torpor."* 

The effects of opium on the brain have been noticed in par- 
ticular cases, sometimes even on the first dose. 

Case CXLIII. "I attended," says Abercrombie, "a sick 
person affected with a severe local disease, which required the 
use of powerful opiates. The remedy did not always succeed 
in procuring repose to the patient. During one restless night, 
he was astonished to see a long procession of personages pass in 
review before him, whose appearance and costume were in accord- 
ance with an event which had, a short time before, been the 
theme of conversation throughout Edinburgh. The figures suc- 
ceeded each other with all the animation and regularity of a 
scene in a theatre ; he heard their conversations, and the long 
discourses which they held relative to the circumstances, some 
of which were in rhyme. On the following day, he repeated 
considerable passages of these poetical compositions. He was 
completely awake, and knew that what he saw was an illusion. 
He remarked that the vision all vanished when he opened his 
eyes, but returned as soon as he closed them."f 

Some years since, attention was drawn to a substance, of 
which great use is made in the East, called Hascliiseh. This 
composition, which is a distillation of the pistils of the hemp, 
and on which M. Aubert Roche published an interesting paper, 
appears, according to the researches of Messrs. Lengles, Mi- 
chaud, and De Sacy, to have played a very important part in 
the Middle Ages. In fact, it is almost certain that the Old Man 

* Pocqueville, Yoyage en Morea. Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve, 
1841. Neuf Annies a Constantinople, par Brayer, 1836, 2 vols. 8vo. 
f Abercrombie, op. cit. p. 389. 



334 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

of the Mountain made use of this preparation to plunge his slides 
into a sea of delight.* 

Observations, made of cases both in Egypt and in France, 
support this opinion. In 1840 I attended, in conjunction with 
several other physicians, a case, the results of which were re- 
ferred to the G-azette Medicale. We had no doubt that haschisch 
formed the chief element of the liquid given to the experiment- 
ers, even if it was not haschisch alone, without any admixture. 
I will subjoin my notice of the meeting. 

About two years since, I published, in a number of the Jour- 
nal des Dehats, some details on the composition of haschisch, a 
drug of general use in the East, and which had produced such 
remarkable effects on three young merchants of Marseilles. 
The case, which excited much curiosity at the time, was, like 
many others, forgotten, when I received from M. A. de G., who 
is well known as the translator of Pliny, in the fine edition of 
Latin Classics, by M. Panckoucke, an invitation to be present 
at some experiments produced by the taking of a substance, 
which occasioned, it was said, similar phenomena to those which 
had been noticed in the adepts of the Old Man of the Mountain. 

On my arrival, the meeting consisted of about thirty persons, 
amongst whom I will name Messrs. Esquirol, Ferrus, Cottereau, 
Bussy, Professor of the School of Pharmacy, General Esmond, 
and M. Destourbet. The remainder of the party were literary 
men, savants, and artists ; consequently, we had assembled every 
element for close observation, and there was every certainty 
that the experiment would be strictly carried out. 

Case CXLIV. At eleven o'clock three persons had taken the 
liquid, namely, Messrs. A. K., a celebrated novelist, of a very 
powerful organization, D., an advocate, one of the best scholars 
of the University, and B., a painter and musician. On the ex- 
piration of two hours, no sensible effect being produced, another 
dose was administered. The following are the phenomena which 
occurred in two of the gentlemen in the course of another half- 
hour. Mr. A. K. resisted the action of the substance, and, as 

* The article Haschisch, in the Supplement of the Dictionnaire des Dic- 
tionnaires de Medecine, 1851, p. 325, edited by Dr. Foy, our colleague in 
the mission for the study of Cholera in Poland, 1831. Memoire sur le 
Haschisch, par M. Gastinel, pharmacien au Caire, et publiee dans le Reper- 
toire de Pharmacie, 1849, t. vi. p. 129. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 335 

he said, only experienced a slight oppression of the head and 
epigastrium; perhaps, also, the second repast which he took, all 
these gentlemen having already breakfasted, may have entirely 
neutralized the substance. An examination of the state of the 
pulse was neglected at the beginning of the experiment ; its ac- 
celeration subsequently, and the state of the pupil, sufficiently 
demonstrated the effect of the substance. 

Mr. B., on whom the medicine first took effect, experienced a 
dryness of the throat and twitching of the limbs ; the pulse was 
96 in the minute, the face flushed. Mr. B. soon closed his eyes 
in order to collect himself; his ideas appeared to develop 
with extreme rapidity. At one moment he offered the singular 
phenomenon of a double man, already described in other expe- 
riments; he said he heard music on one side, and conversation 
on the other; but this symptom did not continue. The music, 
which was performed by M. C, principal performer of the Con- 
servatoire, did not appear to act in any particular manner on the 
subject of experiment. At this time the pupils were much dilated. 
Interrogated as to his sensations, M. B. said that they were very 
voluptuous. He felt particularly gay and happy; he wished to 
be alone in a quiet place; he had great repugnance to speak or 
to move ; all countenances appear to him ridiculous. 

Until now M. B. had conversed ; he moved about, and some- 
times laughed violently, but all his actions resembled those of a 
person excited by alcoholic liquor. Suddenly, he flung himself on 
a couch, refused to answer any more questions, and begged to be 
left alone, and not be disturbed in the delicious sensations he 
experienced ; he had spasmodic movements in his members, and 
in the diaphragm ; he sighed, moaned, laughed, and wept by 
turns ; the pulse 120 a minute, the face much flushed. The 
persons present began to feel uneasy ; but were reassured, on 
hearing Mr. B. repeat several times that he was happy and did 
not suffer. Dr. Cottereau watched the symptoms with the 
greatest minuteness. Mr. B. appeared the whole time to have 
the most agreeable sensations proceeding from the epigastrium. 
All the phenomena presented were those of ecstasy; his fea- 
tures bespoke the greatest happiness ; he could not find language 
to express his feelings ; he would not wish to leave his present 
condition ; he is so happy ! " How much I thank those who 
gave me that delicious drink I" — " Tell me what you feel," said 



336 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

one of the party. — "I cannot express it." The influence of Mr. 
B.'s temperament was remarked throughout this experiment; he 
is possessed of great sensibility. In speaking of gay subjects, 
and pointing out lively and agreeable objects, his ideas harmo- 
nized instantly; he shouted with laughter, and evinced the great- 
est gayety. It was evident, in this case, that he was under the 
influence of the person who spoke to him, who could direct his 
ideas as he chose. Mr. B.'s sense of hearing had become ex- 
tremely acute ; he very distinctly heard what was said far off 
and in a low voice. In the midst of his ecstasy, he neither lost 
consciousness of persons nor things. He replied correctly to 
all questions addressed to him, and knew those who surrounded 
him ; but it was evidently painful to him to speak ; he seemed to wish 
to enjoy his ecstasy undisturbed. At half after four, the pulse 
is 90; his ecstatic reveries continue; he is conscious of anything 
relating to earth ; his mind is perfectly free, and yet he has deli- 
cious sensations. Mr. A. de G. proposes to give him an antidote, 
and bring him back to his natural state ; he says that the sensa- 
tion of happiness will last for a day or two. All whom I have 
interrogated, who have tried the experiment, have assured me 
that they have not felt any distress on the following days, but, 
on the contrary, a great sensation of happiness. 

M. D., the second subject, came to the meeting with the con- 
viction that the substance would not produce any effect upon 
him, and with the firm intention to resist its action. No symp- 
tom occurred for two hours and a half. The physiognomy of 
M. D. is grave. His character is serious; he rarely laughs, and 
devotes himself to his metaphysical studies. 

Towards two o'clock, his pulse rose to 100; his heart beat fre- 
quently ; several persons felt its pulsations. M. D., who until 
now had been very calm, and conversed with the company on 
different subjects, exclaimed that he was delirious ; he began to 
sing, took out his pencil, and endeavored to write down what he 
felt. Here are some fragments of his notes : " It is droll ; my 
feelings are very vivid ; the idea of being useful without fear, 
made me decide on taking this excellent drink ; I am singular. 
They are laughing at me; I will not write any more." He threw 
away his paper ; his delirium increased. The features of M. D. 
become very flexible ; he laughs sardonically ; the expression of 
his eye is animated, his face red, his pulse 120, the pupil dilated. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 337 

Like Mr. B., he looks extremely happy; laughs, sings, gesticu- 
lates, and speaks with extreme volubility. His ideas follow each 
other with rapidity; it is the derangement of gay mania. But 
in the midst of this abundance, mobility, and variableness of ideas, 
those which form the basis of his studies predominate. These 
serious subjects are intermixed with pleasantries, bonmots, and 
puns. His tongue is dry ; he spits frequently ; his inferior ex- 
tremities are slightly convulsed. He remarks on this himself, 
and says: "This is a very singular delirium." Like Mr. B., 
his hearing and sight are very acute. He has no notion of time 
and space, but recognizes every one present, and replies cor- 
rectly to questions put to him. He draws out his watch, and 
says, with the greatest calmness: "It is such an hour.'' A 
multitude of ideas seem to fill his head, which he cannot express ; 
he says : " You might take an ear, or an eye, if you could give 
me another tongue to make known what I feel." 

The pulse lowers ; it is softer, and beats but 90 in the minute. 
The delirium continues ; water is given to him ; he exclaims : 
" That will make the frogs come, who will drink up the liquor." 
Incoherent sentences follow with inconceivable rapidity. 

The character of his delirium changes. He seats himself in 
a corner, closes his eyes, and talks to himself; he looks inspired. 
We surround him ; he speaks of sciences, and gives definitions ; 
then, like a man trying his powers, he pronounces a few broken 
words, and immediately recites some twenty very harmonious 
verses. Being under the impression that they were well-known 
stanzas, we omitted to note them down ; but on some one pre- 
sently asking him if they were not by Victor Hugo, he replied, 
" No." " They are, then, your own ?" He gave a sign of assent. 
His countenance expressed gayety and satisfaction ; his skin be- 
came very pallid ; his pulse 100 ; his eyes closed, which he 
opened on the request of his brother ; the pupil less dilated. 

He left off improvising to speak of foreign countries. We had 
been told that in these experiments the phenomenon of second 
sight would be developed. M. D. described countries and cities, 
which he had visited, with as much correctness as though they 
were then before him ; he perfectly recollected the peculiarities 
which he had noticed in his travels ; in like manner, he told us 
that he saw the stones of the Pantheon, at Naples, raised, and 
drew a very poetical picture of the scenes which had struck him. 
22 



338 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

But notwithstanding all our questions, he could not describe 
places with which he was unacquainted. He saw objects which 
had no existence. His brother inquired if he could look into his 
brain. " No, it is empty ;" then he added : " How do you think 
I can see into your brain ; it is veiled ; there are objects between 
it and me." He then arose, saying : " All this is a dream ; this 
state of aberration has given a livelier impulse to my ideas, but 
has not added to my knowledge." 

The delirium, which for some time had been confined to a 
series of ideas, now became general again ; he sang, laughed, 
and talked with great vivacity; he experienced no suffering; 
and said he was very happy. This state lasted for four hours 
and a half, when I left the party. The pulse at 90 ; the spitting 
frequent, and a constant desire to drink. The interlocutor had 
power to make him speak and act as he chose.* 

The experiments which we witnessed presented several remark- 
able phenomena. The individuals under the influence of hasch- 
isch felt a maniacal exaltation ; ideas succeeded each other with 
rapidity and incoherence ; it might be said, with an ebullition 
which raised them above the influence of the will. The mind 
was under the empire of hallucinations and illusions. Recollec- 
tions could be evoked and revivified, as though they were real, 
but they must be those with which the individual was acquainted ; 
for, when interrogated on unknown things, he replied that he 
could not speak of what he had not seen ; or, if he attempted a 
description, it was obscure. As in dreams, there was a loss of 
all idea of time and space. In one of the subjects the excite- 
ment was raised to a pitch which gave a much greater intense- 
ness to his faculties, and enabled him to improvise some poetry ; 
however, there is no proof that he had not before thought of it. 
What, however, is certain, is, that Mr. D. said he made the ex- 
periment with the idea of increasing his intellectual resources, 
but that it had not added anything to his knowledge. 

In the midst of this tangled web of ideas, of this state which 
the subjects of it called a singular folly, the sentiment of person- 
ality was preserved. Thus, nothing could be more curious than 
the contrast of their rational replies to the questions addressed 

*Brierre de Boismont, Gazette Medicale, 2d Mai, 1840. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 339 

to them, with the wandering of their ideas, when nothing recalled 
them to actual life. 

In the one case, a fact was noticed having some analogy with 
the principle of the duality of mind — a fact which Dr. Wigan 
wished to establish. The individual heard conversation with one 
ear and music with the other. Those who tested the experi- 
ments had voluptuous sensations, and exhibited a considerable 
development of the sense of hearing. Delirious conceptions, 
fixed ideas, a disturbance of the affections, and irresistible im- 
pulses were equally remarked in them. 

It is curious to perceive in this work, the eight phenomena which 
M. Moreau has described in his work on Haschisch, published 
five years after our researches; but we do not coincide more now 
than we formerly did, in the opinion of our honorable brother 
on the primordial fact of the delirium which he calls maniacal 
excitement, and on the absolute identity of the physiological na- 
ture of delirium with the dream state. Without confounding all 
our ideas of the value of words, it is difficult to give the name 
of maniacal excitement to the condition of a man who, having a 
false idea or sensation, appreciates them at their just value, and 
yet is unable to escape their influence, any more than it is pos- 
sible to conceive a dream to be physiologically and psychologi- 
cally identical with a delirium. 

M. Theophile Gautier has published, in La Presse, an article 
on the effects of haschisch on himself: — 

" We had long heard," says this writer, " without giving much 
faith to it, of the wonderful effects produced by this substance. 
We were already acquainted with the hallucinations caused by 
smoking opium, but haschisch was only known to us by name. 

" One of our companions, Dr. , who had travelled much in 

the East, and was a determined opium-eater, was the first to yield 
to its influence, having taken a much larger dose than the 
others; he saw the stars in his plate, and the firmament in the 
soup dish; then turning his face to the wall, talked to himself, and 
burst into fits of laughter with eyes flashing and in the highest 
state of glee. I felt perfectly calm until dinner was over, al- 
though the pupils of the eyes of my other friend began to 
sparkle strangely and acquire a most singular turquoise blue 
tint. The table being cleared, I (still having my senses) ar- 
ranged myself comfortably with cushions on a divan to await 



340 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

the ecstasy. In a few minutes a general lethargy overcame me. 
My body appeared to dissolve and become transparent. I saw 
the haschisch which I had eaten, distinctly within me, under the 
form of an emerald, from which thousands of little sparks were 
emitted; my eyelashes lengthened indefinitely, twisting them- 
selves like golden threads around little ivory wheels, which whirled 
about with inconceivable rapidity. Around me were figures and 
scrolls of all colors, arabesques, and flowery forms in endless 
variety, which I can only compare to the variations of the ka- 
leidoscope. I still occasionally saw my companions; but they 
appeared disfigured; half men, half plants ; now, with the pensive 
air of the ibis, standing on one leg ; and again, as ostriches, flap- 
ping their wings, and wearing so strange an appearance that I 
shook with laughter in my corner; and, as if to join in the buf- 
foonery of the scene, I commenced tossing up my cushions, 
catching them as they descended, and twisting them round with 
all the dexterity of an Indian juggler. One of the gentlemen 
addressed a discourse to me in Italian, which the haschisch by its 
extraordinary power delivered to me in Spanish. Questions and 
answers were almost rational, and touched on indifferent mat- 
ters, such as the theatres and literature. 

" The first stage drew towards its termination. After some 
minutes I recovered my calmness, without headache, or any of 
the symptoms which accompany the use of wine, and feeling very 
much astonished at what had passed. Another half hour had 
scarcely elapsed, when I again fell under the influence of the 
haschisch. The vision this time was more complicated and extraor- 
dinary. Millions of butterflies, whose wings rustled like fans, flew 
about in the midst of a confused kind of light. Gigantic flowers 
with crystal calyces, enormous hollyhocks, gold and silver lilies 
arose, and burst into flowers around me with a crackling sound 
like that of bouquets of fireworks. My hearing was prodigiously 
developed ; I heard the sound of color — green, red, blue, and 
yellow sounds struck me with perfect distinctness. A glass up- 
set, the creaking of a chair, or a word spoken, howsoever low, 
vibrated and resounded like the rolling of thunder; my own 
voice appeared so loud that I dared not speak for fear of throw- 
ing down the walls, or bursting like a bomb; more than five 
hundred clocks chimed the hour with their flutelike voices. Every 
object gave forth a note of the harmonica or iEolian harp. I 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 341 

swain in an ocean of sound, wherein some passages of the Lucia 
and Barbiere floated, like little islets of light. Never before 
had I bathed in such beatitude ; I was so encircled by its waves, 
so transported from all things earthly, so lost to self — that odious, 
ever-present witness — that I comprehended for the first time 
what might be the existence of elementary spirits, and angels, 
and souls released from this mortal coil. I was as a sponge in the 
midst of the sea; every instant waves of happiness washed over 
me, entering and departing through the pores; for I had become 
permeable, and, even to the smallest capillary vessel, my whole 
being was filled with the color of the fantastic medium in which 
I was plunged. Sounds, perfumes, and light reached me by 
multitudes of beams, delicate as hair, through which I heard the 
magnetic current pass. 

"According to my calculation, this state must have lasted for 
three hundred years, for the sensations succeeded each other so 
numerously and powerfully, that the real appreciation of time was 
impossible. When the attack was over, I perceived that it had 
lasted a quarter of an hour.* 

" What is very curious in the intoxicating effect of the hasch- 
isch is, that it is not continuous; it comes and goes suddenly — 
raises you to heaven, and places you again on earth, without any 
gradual transition ; like madness, too, it has its lucid intervals. 
A third attack, the last and strangest, terminated my oriental 
soiree. In this, my sight was doubled. Two images of each 
object were reflected on my retina, and produced a complete 
symmetry ; but soon, the magic paste being entirely digested, 
acted with more power on my brain, and I became completely 
mad for the space of an hour. All kinds of Pantagruelic dreams 
passed through my fancy ; goat-suckers, storks, striped geese, 
unicorns, griffins, nightmares, all the menagerie of monstrous 
dreams, trotted, jumped, flew, or glided through the room. 
There were horns terminating in foliage, webbed hands ; whim- 
sical beings, with the feet of the arm-chair for legs, and dial- 
plates for eyeballs ; enormous noses, dancing the Cachucha, 
mounted on chickens' legs. For myself, I imagined I was the 

* Many of these phenomena, and amongst others that of the duration 
of time, are mentioned in the picturesque descriptions given in the Opium- 
Eater. 



342 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

paroquet of the Queen of Sheba, and imitated, to the best of my 
ability, the voice and cries of that interesting bird. The visions 
became so grotesque that I was seized with a desire to sketch 
them, which I did in five minutes, with inconceivable rapidity, 
on the backs of letters, cards, or any piece of paper on which I 

could lay my hands. One of them is the portrait of Dr. , 

as he appeared to me, seated at the piano, dressed as a Turk, 
with a sun painted on the back of his vest. The notes are re- 
presented escaping from the instrument in the form of guns 
and spirals, capriciously intertwisted. Another sketch bears 
this inscription : 'An animal of hereafter.' It represents a liv- 
ing locomotive, with a swan's neck terminating in the jaws of a 
serpent, whence issue jets of smoke, with two monstrous paws, 
composed of wheels and pulleys ; each pair of paws has a pair of 
wings ; and on the tail of the animal is seated the Mercury of 
the ancients, who is confessing himself to be conquered, notwith- 
standing his heels. Thanks to haschisch, I have painted from 
nature the portrait of a goblin. Even now, I fancy I hear them 
whining and mowing at night in my old beauffet."* 

The marvellous effects of haschisch being made known, we 
experimented on hypochondriacs, in presence of several of the 
faculty who had given most study to this substance, f The 
state of these patients was in no degree modified, and we do 
not think that the virtues attributed to this substance gained 
many partisans. Besides, its use is not without danger. The 
Eastern governments must have considered it to be great, to 
have interdicted its use. Let it not be forgotten, that Madden 
and Desgenettes saw several lunatics in the hospital, at Cairo, 
who had lost their reason simply from the use of haschisch. J 
Quite recently, the papers called attention to numerous cases of 
mental alienation noticed at Constantinople, owing to the use of 

* La Presse, 10th July, 1843. Every one will recognize in this descrip- 
tion, a perfect similitude with Cases CXLII. and CXLV. For more ample 
details, examine the work of M. Aubert Roche, entitled De la peste et du 
Typhus de LVOrient, 1843, 1 vol. 8vo., and above all, the work of Dr. 
Moreau, on Haschisch. 

f Annuaire de Therapeutique de M. Bouchardet, pour 1845, p. 32. 

|Brierre de Boismont, Influence de la civilisation sur le developpement 
de la folie. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 343 

haschisch.* It is not long since we read the following account 
in a public journal : — 

" A frightful scene occurred on the 30th of May, on board the 
Empress, a packet-ship of the Austrian Lloyd, on the run from 
Trebizond to Constantinople. The number of passengers was 
above two hundred, two-thirds of whom were Turks and Persians. 
Amongst them were two Affghan dervishes of Candahar. At 
three in the afternoon, their prayers being concluded, the derv- 
ishes were seized with a paroxysm of frenzy, the consequences 
of which were terrible. In an instant, they had shot a young 
Greek, stabbed an Armenian, and Lloyd's agent from Trebi- 
zond. Six other passengers were more or less dangerously 
wounded. Finally, by order of the captain, the sailors killed 
the dervishes with the bayonet. These furious madmen were 
from forty to forty-five years of age, and of the sect of the 
Schittes. They commenced the carnage without provocation. 
From the report of several passengers, it appears certain that 
they had become intoxicated with haschisch. For a time, the 
Turks and Persians on board appeared inclined to take part with 
them, but the energy of the captain happily prevented this."t 

Indeed, a prolonged indulgence in this drug must necessarily 
have a fatal effect on the health. The momentary loss of reason, 
although it be intentional, presents but a melancholy spectacle. 

There is a poisonous substance, which has also the power of 
producing hallucinations, called stramonium (datura stramonium), 
thorn-apple, which has been latterly recognized as their antidote, 
in imitation of that weapon of the olden time, which is said to 
have cured the wounds it made. 

Case CXLV. Some years since, a musical composer, under 
the distress occasioned by domestic griefs, attempted suicide. 
For this purpose, he took a strong dose of datura. The effect 
of this poison was exhibited in giddiness and all the symptoms 
of intoxication. He saw troops of men whirling in a circle be- 
fore him, who endeavored to drag him into their vortex. All 
the characters in the ballet of Gustavus, in which he had been 
engaged during the evening, appeared to him making grimaces, 
and harassing him in every way. He fell to the ground, sense- 

* De Tabus de Haschisch, Annal. Med. Psy., Jan. 1851. 
fLaPresse, 22d June, 1845. 



344 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

less, and was taken to the guardhouse, where he gave way to 
the greatest violence, imagining himself to be surrounded by 
assassins, robbers, and wretches, who sought to injure him. 
These figures were countless in numbers, of gigantic stature, and 
hideous, in appearance. He was taken to the H6tel Dieu, and 
placed under the charge of M. Husson, who treated him for furious 
delirium. On the following day, when he was brought to my 
establishment, his excitement had greatly diminished. The 
pupils of the eyes were still dilated, and extraordinary figures 
still visible. This phenomenon soon ceased, and in two or three 
days he was cured. 

On the 21st of November, 1843, three young children ate a 
quantity of the seeds of the datura. Symptoms were soon ma- 
nifested similar to those caused by the ingestion of that sub- 
stance ; numerous hallucinations of sight were united to these 
phenomena, in two of the sick children. On the following day 
the symptoms were considerably diminished in all three, but the 
youngest felt a great weakness in the limbs. The day after, all 
uneasiness had disappeared as if by enchantment.* 

Several patients, under the influence of datura, which had been 
applied according to Dr. Moreau's method, saw animals in the 
middle of their beds. The vision occurred chiefly in the night. 

Hallucinations and illusions are equally excited by the berries 
of belladonna. An account is given in the great Dictionnaire 
des Sciences Medicales of a company of soldiers, who, having 
inadvertently eaten of this fruit, experienced numerous illusions. 
M. Baillarger, in his clinical lectures in the SaltjpStriere, has 
described several cases of this character ; a maid-servant, hav- 
ing taken an infusion of belladonna on the approach of her 
periods, had an attack of delirium ; she was surrounded by little 
animals running on the ground, of various colors and sizes. She 
attempted to seize one, but, instead of an animal, caught only a 
leaf, as is related in the Stories of the Thousand and One Nights, 
and in the legends of Treasures sold by the Devil.f 

* Exaininat. Med., 15th of May, 1843. 

f The use of narcotic beverages, and poisonous substances, for the pur- 
pose of causing transformations, of preparing for initiation, etc., is traced 
far into antiquity. M. Eusebe Salverte has collected many examples in 
his work on the Occult Sciences. 

Prosper Alpin relates that, in his time, the Egyptians used a number of 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 345 

The third section comprises hallucinations combined with mental 
alienation. It should be observed that, in many circumstances, 

intoxicating drinks, which made them act like madmen. Whenever they 
-wished to excuse a bad action, they said they had partaken of herbs. He 
describes the principal ones under the names of " affion, anis, bora, ber- 
nari, and bus," and enters into some details of their composition (Prosper 
Alpin, De Medicini JEgyptiarum, lib. iv. cap. v. p. 118-122). 

Kempfer speaks of a medicine of this character, the effects of which ap- 
peared similar to those of nepenthe, which we believe to be Indian hemp. 
Having, with his companions, partaken of an electuary given to him during 
a repast by the Indians, they felt so happy that they could only express 
their joy by laughter, cries, and reciprocal caresses. At night, when they 
mounted their horses to return home, they thought themselves carried by 
Pegasus through the clouds, surrounded by rainbows ; and, on recovering 
from this effect, they were ravenously hungry, and ate with avidity what- 
ever was offered to them. On the following day their health of mind and 
body was excellent. — Sauvages, Nosol. Meth., class viii. gener. xvii. lim. 
iii. par. i. p. 371. Friedreich, Algemeine Diagnoctik der psycsisclien Krank- 
eiten, Wurzburg, 1830. 

The muchamore is a mushroom, common in Kamtschatka and Siberia. 
Bencowski relates that a Siberian schuman whom he consulted, used an 
infusion of muchamore ; this drink first plunged him into delirium, then into 
a deep sleep. If eaten either dry or infused, it sometimes produces death, 
always strong delirium, sometimes of a gay character, at others full of 
sadness and terror. Those who partake of it believe themselves to be un- 
der the irresistible power of the spirit that lives in the poisonous mush- 
room. In one of these paroxysms, a Cossack imagined that the spirit 
desired him to confess his sins ; and so, in fact, he did, before all his com- 
rades. — Krakenninikof, Description du Kamtschatka, part i. chap. iv. 

Porta and Cardan give two receipts for witches' ointment; nightshade 
formed the basis of the one, henbane and opium of the other. The wise 
Gassendi, in order to enlighten those poor wretches who believed fheni- 
selves witches, endeavored to discover their secret, and to imitate it. With 
an ointment in which he introduced opium (probably belladonna), he 
anointed the peasantry, and persuaded them that by that means they would 
go to the sabbath. After a long sleep, they awakened, convinced that 
the magical proceeding had taken effect; gave a detailed account of 
what they had seen, and the pleasures they had enjoyed ; and related in 
what respect the action of opium was marked by voluptuous sensations. — 
Eusebe Salverte, op. cit. p. 294. 

A witch was found, in 1545, in possession of an ointment composed of 
stupefying drugs. Andre Laguna, physician to Pope Julius III., used it 
to anoint a woman who was attacked with frenzy and restlessness. She 
slept for thirty-six hours, and when they succeeded in waking her, com- 
plained that they had taken her from the arms of a handsome young man. — 
Llorente, Hist, de L'Inq., t. iii. p. 428. 

This hallucination may be compared with those experienced by women 



346 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

they precede the development of insanity, so that they may 
be considered as causes ; but in a great number of cases, appear 

devoted to the worship of the mother of the gods, who heard continually 
the sound of flutes and tambourines, saw the merry dances of fauns and 
satyrs, and felt inexpressible pleasures. — Eusebe Salverte, p. 295. 

The aspirants to initiation, and those who came to demand omens of the 
gods, in dreams, partook, after a prescribed fast, of food expressly pre- 
pared for them ; and above all, of mysterious beverages, such as the waters 
of Lethe, and the waters of Mnemosyne, in the grotto of Trophonius, or the 
Ciceion, in the Eleusinian mysteries. 

Of the substances intended to produce the most important effects in occult 
ceremonies, the soporific were the simplest and the most common. Plu- 
tarch has preserved a description of the mysteries of Trophonius, written 
by a man who had passed two days and two nights in the grotto. They 
appear more like the dreams of a man intoxicated by a powerful narcotic, 
than any real scenes. Timarchus, the name of the initiated, experienced 
a violent headache when the apparitions commenced, or, what is the same 
thing, when the beverage began to affect his senses ; and when the appa- 
ritions vanished, that is, when he awoke from his delirious sleep, the same 
pain occurred. 

Timarchus died in three months after. Doubtless the priests used very 
powerful drugs. — Plutarch, De Dozmonio Socratis. 

Varron, quoted by St. Augustin, says that the Italian sorceresses enticed 
the too confiding travellers to follow them, and made them eat of a cheese 
containing a drug, which changed them into beasts of burden. They then 
loaded them with their baggage, and, at the end of the journey, changed 
them again into their natural forms. Under these figurative expressions, 
copied from Yarron, who surely quoted his own experience, it is evident 
that the mind of the traveller was so disturbed by the drug he had taken, 
that he blindly submitted to its singular influence until the magicians put 
an end to it by administering an antidote. — St. Augustin, De civiiate Dei, 
lib. xviii. cap. xvii., xviii. See La Traduction de M. Moreau, edition Char- 
pentier, 1843. 

We will not refer to the enchantments of Circe, their authenticity not 
being established ; but there is no doubt that, in that far distant period, 
the properties of certain poisonous plants were understood. A. Laguna, in 
his commentaries on Dioscorides, mentions a kind of solanum, the root of 
which, taken in wine, a drachm to a dose, fills the imagination with the 
most delicious illusions. — Dioscorides, lib. 76, cap. iv. ; cite par Llorente, 
Hist, de L'Inq., p. 457. 

In collating the various opinions on the Nepenthes of Homer, M. Virey 
discovers it in the hyoscyamus datura of Forskal, which is used through- 
out Egypt and the East in an analogous manner ; and this writer points 
out several substances capable of producing effects no less wonderful. — 
Virey, Bulletin de Pharmacie, t. v. Feb. 1813, pp. 49, 50. 

Pliny says that the " potomantes, or thalassegle, grows on the banks of the 






CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 347 

during the mental malady, when they are but an effect, a symp- 
tom, a result. Here, several questions present themselves: Does 
hallucination depend on organic derangement brought on by 
disease ? Is it united to the psycho-cerebral excitation which has 
caused insanity — in a word, is it physical or moral ? The dis- 
tinction is often very difficult; nevertheless, the nature of the 
hallucination, and its direct connection with the cause of the in- 
sanity, is authority for believing that it is often owing to moral 
excitement. With these reservations, we think that the action 
of mental diseases, although not sufficiently understood, should 
none the less be classed amongst physical causes. 

In treating of hallucinations as combined with insanity, we 
have shown that they are very common; so also are illusions in 
monomania, stupidity, and mania. We have equally observed 
them in puerperal mania, dementia, and even general paralysis 
with dementia. We conclude, from analogy, that they may pos- 
sibly exist in some degrees of imbecility. For farther informa- 
tion, we refer to the different chapters on alienation. 

Those hallucinations which show themselves with nervous 
diseases other than madness, are classed under the fourth sec- 
tion — such as catalepsy, epilepsy, hysteria, hypochondria, and 
frenzy.* To this section belong certain nervous conditions which, 
without being completely morbid, have more than one root in 
pathology; such are nightmare and ecstasy. We will here re- 
peat the remark made in the preceding chapter ; it is not always 
easy to separate the two influences (moral and physical) ; for 
example, ecstasy is very often due to the first of these causes, 
and hypochondria, as has been proved by M. Dubois of Amiens, 
in his work, submits equally to its action. We must not, how- 
ever, attach more importance to classifications than they merit ; 
they are artificial assistants to the mind, and incessantly present 
exceptions to the rule. In collecting facts of hallucinations as de- 
veloped in nervous diseases (madness excepted) into a single group, 
we know very well that many of these states were determined 
by moral causes ; but our object was to make a single section of 

Indus, and the gelatophellis near Bactria. Infusions of these two plants, 
made into a drink, cause delirium ; the one causes extraordinary visions, 
the other excites continual laughter." 

* Sandras, Traite pratique des maladies nerveuses, 1851, p. 360. 



348 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

these maladies, and to exhibit their morbid influence on the 
production of hallucinations. As to the developments which 
comprise the subject of this fourth division, they will be found 
sufficiently illustrated elsewhere. 

The fifth and last section comprehends hallucinations which 
occur in inflammatory, acute, and chronic diseases, and in seve- 
ral other affections. Acute delirium, to which subject we invited 
attention in a paper read to the Royal Academy of Medicine, 
has appeared to us to establish a natural transition between the 
preceding divisions, and this one, by reason of its double ele- 
ment, nervous and inflammatory.* The febrile state is that 
which presents the most hallucinations. They are equally noticed 
in some congestions and inflammation of the organs. They are 
not unusual in typhoid and intermittent fevers. Some authors 
have related remarkable instances of their occurrence in the 
gout. Certain dispositions of the body, such as the last stages 
of hectic diseases, abstinence, and convalescence, syncope, and 
prolonged watching, are all favorable to their production. 
Becker relates that thirty-two shipwrecked mariners, after a 
lengthened watch, believed that they saw sloops, and fishermen 
drying their nets, with Moors and Dutchmen of their acquaint- 
ance, whose clothing they perfectly distinguished. f Finally, 
they have been observed in some constitutions subject to peculiar 
atmospheric influence. 

We have endeavored, to the best of our power, to explain the 
causes of hallucinations. We do not flatter ourselves with hav- 
ing brought them all into notice ; but we believe that our work 
will provide useful materials for the etiology of this affection. 
It now remains to draw up a succinct summary. 

Recapitulation. — The etiology of hallucinations and illu- 
sions has never been the subject of a special work, because all 
authors have looked upon them as an adjunct of madness. 

Former hallucinations, those compatible with reason — isolated 
hallucinations, and those which are united with diseases, may 
furnish useful instructions on their etiology. 

Hallucinations appearing with mental diseases, their division 

* Brierre de Boismont, Du. Delire aigu observe" dans les 6tablissements 
d'alienes. Ouvrage couronne par l'Institut de France, 1845, 4to. 
f Le Monde Enchante, t. iv. pp. 55, 56. 



CAUSES OF HALLUCINATIONS. 349 

into moral and physical causes may also apply to them. The 
mode in which hallucinations are developed in epidemic illusions 
evidently applies to moral influence. 

Education, credulity, the dominant ideas of the epoch, and 
different states of society, should be the objects of special study 
in the research for causes. 

Amongst the moral causes which have exercised a great influ- 
ence on hallucinations, may be placed the belief in the power 
and co-operation of spirits, demons, sorcery, magic, lycantrophy, 
visions of souls in punishment asking for prayers, of spirits who 
make revelations, announce an approaching death, return to 
fulfil a compact, vampirism, ecstasies, etc. 

All passions, fixed ideas, and great preoccupation, may be a 
source of hallucinations. Remorse must especially be noted. 

A great number of hallucinations are occasioned by physical 
causes. 

The principal physical causes which influence the development 
of hallucinations may be classed under five heads : — 

To the first belong inheritance, the sexes, the times, tempera- 
ment, professions, physiological causes, seasons, climate, and 
places. 

The second comprehends mechanical causes, fermented liquors, 
alcoholic beverages, certain gaseous and narcotic substances ; 
poisons, such as opium, haschisch, datura stramonium, bella- 
donna, and several others. 

The third head embraces hallucinations attendant on mental 
alienations ; whether preceding them, occurring during their 
course, or succeeding them. 

Under the fourth head may be ranked hallucinations which 
show themselves with catalepsy, hysteria, hypochondria, rage, 
nightmare, sleep, and ecstasy. These different states present 
distinctions; thus, sleep, a physiological phenomenon, is only 
placed in the catalogue on account of nightmare, and because 
the hallucinations observable in it are often the commencement 
of disease, or at least of an abnormal disposition. Ecstasy, we 
have only brought into the group on account of the pathological 
state which it may determine; but we have elsewhere observed 
that the hallucinations which it occasions are often due to moral 
causes. 

Finally, around the fifth and last head, are grouped halluci- 



350 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

nations remarked in acute, chronic, and other diseases.' In this 
section, we have placed those occurring in acute delirium, the 
diseases of the brain, fever, congestions, inflammations of the 
organs, typhoid and intermittent fevers, gout, pellagra, chlorosis, 
the last stage of chronic diseases, abstinence, syncope, conva- 
lescence, and some constitutions under atmospheric influence. 

It is probable that hallucinations have been seen in other 
forms of disease ; but in order to appreciate their mode of 
action, it is sufficient for us to notice those in which they are 
most frequently exhibited. 



CHAPTER XV 



Difference of the psychology of hallucinations, as dependent on soundness of 
mind or insanity — Incitements to madness — Introduction of physiology into his- 
tory — The philosophy of history contrary to this doctrine — Development of sen- 
sorial impressions in the brain ; the change which they undergo — Hallucinations 
differ according to the character of individuals — A few words on the nature and 
seat of hallucinations — Influence of the nervous and sanguine systems — Of the 
nature of ideas — Division of ideas into spiritual and sensual — The second 
alone furnish materials for hallucinations — Influence of attention, comparison, 
imagination, memory, and association, on the mechanism of hallucination — Cor- 
poreity of spiritual ideas caused by the abuse of abstraction — Apparitions of 
Cassius, Brutus, and Julian — Hallucinations do not alone borrow their mate- 
rials from actual ideas ; they are also reminiscences of old and erroneous 
impressions — The origin of false ideas may be found in a forgetfulness of the 
knowledge of God and of self — In many cases, hallucination is almost a normal 
state, which explains why so many celebrated men have been attacked by it, 
without becoming insane — Historical hallucinations show themselves first in 
persons collectively ; secondly individually — Examples of Loyola, Luther, Joan 
of Arc, and G-. Fox — Each of these characters may be looked on as the per- 
sonification of an epoch, a useful idea — Their hallucinations do not, in general, 
offer any analogy to those of the present time, which are more or less com- 
bined with madness — In every celebrated man there is a spiritual character 
(history), and a mortal character (biography)— Many hallucinations are those 
of the age, not of the individual — A Hue of division ought to be established 
between the apparitions of Holy "Writ and the hallucinations of profane 
history, and even those of many Christians— Recapitulation. 

A preliminary study has initiated us into a knowledge of the 
moral and physical, social and individual causes, which concur 
in favoring the development of hallucinations; but it is neces- 
sary to penetrate deeper into the nature of this phenomenon ; to 
analyze, as much as possible, its mode of formation, and its con- 
stituent elements, and to indicate its general and particular 
characteristics; such will be the object of this secondary study, 
which we will call psychological. 



352 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The contest which we have maintained to establish the co- 
existence of hallucinations with reason, will meet with stronger 
and more obstinate opposition on this new ground. In fact, the 
explanation of this phenomenon must necessarily offer very dis- 
tinct differences, according to whether it is viewed in the light 
of madness or of sound reason. In the first case, hallucinations 
will be the consequence of deranged health ; in the second, it 
will be a physiological state, resulting from a higher degree of 
attention and enthusiasm ; the auxiliary, and not the provocative 
of the idea. 

In order that the suit now brought before science may be 
properly judged, we should first point out the reasons advanced 
by our adversaries, and afterwards develop our principles and 
the facts on which they rest; by this method, the whole matter 
will be under observation, and judgment can be pronounced 
when the case has been heard. 

The celebrated M. Lelut, who may justly be considered 
as head of the school which has introduced physiology into 
history, has explained his doctrine in the following words : 
"Let us look at Socrates, who not only imagines that he receives 
influences and divine inspirations, but who believes that, by vir- 
tue of this privilege, he possesses a similar influence over his 
friends and disciples, and almost over strangers, even when at 
a distance from them, and to whom, in the exercise of this fa- 
culty, stone-walls offer no impediment. One cannot, in fact, 
see or hear anything more extravagant or more characteristic of 
insanity ; and hallucinists, who, to my knowledge, pretend to 
impart or to receive physical influences from a distance by aid 
of magnetism and free-masonry, express themselves in like 
manner with Socrates, and are not, in this view, greater madmen 
than he was. In modern times, the insanity of Tasso, Pascal, 
Rousseau, Swammerdam, Vanhelmont, and Swedenborg, are now 
almost universally acknowledged by men who blended the study 
of morbid psychology with that of history and philosophy."* 

Leuret, in his Fragmens Psychologiques, and M. Calmeil, in 

* Lelut, Du Demon de Socrate, specimen of the application of psycho- 
logical science to that of history, enlarged from Memoires sur les Halluci- 
nations et la Folie, 1836, p. 121. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 353 

his work,* have upheld the same doctrine, which is likewise that 
of M. Baillarger. 

M. Al. Maury, who has supported the opinions of If. Lelut, 
by his deep researches and vast erudition, also observes that 
notice must be taken of the effect which the temperament and 
health of individuals has on civil society. 

According to this scholar, events are almost always accom- 
plished by isolated or single wills and individual acts, and con- 
sequently, historical facts may often fall under the empire of 
physiological laws.f 

The philosophy of history is entirely at variance with this 
proposition. It shows, in fact, that individuals never lead their 
epoch; the proof of which is, that if the ideas which they defend 
have not attained maturity, or if they precede their age, the 
originators almost always perish on the scaffold, in torture, in 
misery, or in obscurity; they are fortunate if they are not stigma- 
tized with the ban of madness. As to those favorites of fortune and 
renown, who are happy enough to live at the right time, success 
attends them so long as they respond to the general need; but if, 
dazzled by their triumphs, they attempt to substitute their own 
wills for those of others, and turn the current of ideas to their 
own profit, they are almost invariably precipitated from the 
exalted station in which circumstances have placed them. Man, 
notwithstanding his pride, is but an instrument in the hands of 
Providence, and Bossuet has well said : " Man moves, but it is 
God who leads him." 

Amongst other objections which have been addressed to me, 
it has been said: "You have not decided whether hallucination 
is or is not a disease. A phenomenon either is or is not normal. 
There is in hallucination something more than a mental error, 
there is a fact." 

*De la Folie, consideree sur le point de vue pathologique, philosophique, 
historique, et judiciaire, 2 vols. Paris, 1845. 

f AL Maury, De Phaliucination envisagee au point de vue philosophique 
et historique, ou Exaraen critique de l'opinion eraise par M. Brierre de 
Boismonttouchantles caracteres auxquelles on doitreconnaitrel'hallucina- 
tion chez certains personages celebres de Fhistoire. — Annal. Med. Psych. 
t. v. p. 317, 1845. 

Calmeil, De la Folie consideree sur la point de vue pathologique, philo- 
sophique, historique, et judiciaire, anal, par Al. Maury. — Annal. M6d. Psych. 
t. vii. p. 110, 1846. 
23 



354 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

To these critics I reply, that they are mistaken in asserting 
that I have declined the question of how far this phenomenon is 
influenced by the state of health. This is evident by the divi- 
sion I have made of hallucinations into physiological and morbid. 
My opinion agrees with those of the able physicians whom I have 
quoted, that it is distinguished by the following characteristics, 
viz. : when the hallucination is recognized by the person affected 
as an error, when it exercises no evil influence on the conduct, 
and is only the effect of a rational idea, it cannot be considered 
as the act of a madman ; but when it incites to murder, to sui- 
cide, to the performance of a culpable or ridiculous action, con- 
trary to the eternal laws of good sense, it is evidently morbid. 

The question of limit presents insurmountable difficulties. 
Who can say : "There reason ends and madness begins ?" What 
naturalist is prepared to lay down the line of demarcation be- 
tween the last link of the animal and the first of the vegetable 
kingdom ? So it is with hallucinations. Let what we have said 
on reveries and dreams be remembered ; also, what Meister has 
said on the intermediate state between sleeping and waking, and 
it will be seen that there are normal or almost normal hallucina- 
tions, as well as insane ones ; but there is a period when it be- 
comes almost impossible to separate them, although experience 
may distinguish the differences. Without doubt, there may be 
hallucination in a fact ; but the mirage, the square tower which 
appears round, the stick which, when plunged into water appears 
broken, are also facts, and yet would any one dare to call those 
who see and believe in these phenomena, madmen ? 

Another observation need only be mentioned to be appreciated. 
Some say it is not surprising that the insane and monomaniacs 
perform great acts ; they recognize no obstacles ; they have 
neither doubt nor uncertainty ; and follow unresistingly the real- 
ization of their thoughts, whilst men in their senses weigh all 
the difficulties of their position, and trust nothing to chance. 
In this view, Alexander, Christopher Columbus, and a host of 
others would be madmen. All the heroic traits with which his- 
tory abounds, all those sublime actions which electrify us, all 
those sacrifices which move us to tears, would be but acts of folly, 
for there was no cold calculation in them ; they were the result 
of enthusiasm, honor, and impulse. Assuredly, prudence often 
decides on human actions ; but are not the highest of these ac- 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 355 

tions frequently owing to extreme exaltation of mind, to an irre- 
sistible and unpremeditated transport? 

The question ably sustained by the two writers whom we have 
named, is, after all, but the reproduction, under another form, 
of the old medical doctrine of prepotence (prepotenza) of the 
organs, a doctrine which has latterly been renewed by ingenious 
researches on the subject of hereditary qualities. 

Before we touched on this subject, many eminent writers 
had shown, how completely this systematical idea was opposed to 
facts and history; and, to give but one example, several illustri- 
ous recluses of Port Royal enjoyed the finest health, whilst they 
at the same time professed doctrines exactly similar to those of 
the immortal author of the Pensees. The supremacy of mind 
over matter has been noticed in a number of cases. A renowned 
Asiatic conqueror was informed, in his dying hour, that his army 
was on the point of being vanquished; he gave orders to be placed 
in his palanquin, with the curtains hermetically closed, to be 
borne to the most exposed parts of the field, and his death not 
revealed until the enemy was vanquished. At sight of the im- 
perial palanquin, the courage of the soldiers revived ; the enemy 
was defeated, and fled; but on opening the curtains of the palan- 
quin, it was discovered that the emperor had ceased to exist for 
several hours. Sir Thomas More, weakened by illness, and a mark 
for moral persecution of every kind, laid his head courageously 
on the block in witness to his religious faith. Moliere, so great 
in mind, so profound in observation, was sickly and melancholy, 
yet no dramatist will ever equal the richness, truth, and bold- 
ness of the comic sallies in his immortal works. Does Scarron, 
twisted by rheumatism into the form of a Z, exhibit in his works 
any trace of his physical state? Fetter not then the mind — that 
active agent which rather governs our organization than is gov- 
erned by it — by the humiliating yoke of organs and their mor- 
bid conditions. Finally, has not the illustrious Pascal himself, 
whose sufferings may be considered the moving spring of his 
actions, given the most convincing proof of the superiority of 
mind over the organs, in the following fact mentioned by M. 
Lelut: " This great man had a severe toothache, the commence- 
ment of the second stage of those infirmities, which were des- 
tined soon to bear him to the grave. His friend and admirer, 
the Duke of Roannez, left him one night suffering greatly from 



356 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

that neuralgic affection; on the following day, finding him 
cured, he inquired how it had been effected. Pascal told him, 
without appearing to attach any importance to it, and, as 
though he had used an ordinary remedy, that he had solved 
the problems of the cycloid curve or wheel, and that, during 
his labor, the pain had disappeared." Without recurring to 
such elevated examples, there are few who have not witnessed 
a complete cessation of suffering under the influence of study, 
distraction, and conversation. We see daily, far removed from 
the eyes of the world, virtuous minds exhibiting the struggle of 
mind with suffering, whilst the former remains uninjured. Those 
who have watched the last hours of real Christians cannot for- 
get their elevation of thought and serenity of soul. Indeed, 
the weakest bodies frequently possess the most unconquerable 
minds. 

We have never attempted to deny the action which a sickly 
condition of the organs exerts over the will ; and, on this subject, 
we think with M. Cerise, that they may be influenced by a fit of 
the spleen, or a disordered stomach. Does it follow that these two 
.circumstances should interpose, like superior elements in the phi- 
losophy of history? "I should imagine," says the author quoted, 
"that care would be taken to describe the influence of the charac- 
ter, or, in other words, the temperament of certain men on their 
actions in the aggregate; but that has been done by the greater 
number of historians and biographers, and I do not think that 
the least scientific revolution remains to be made, in that re- 
spect, which will benefit the philosophy of history. It is for 
the science of the harmony of physics and moral law to furnish 
the elements of a deeper appreciation, and it is this science 
which should be enlarged and perfected. To enter into a 
detailed account of individual infirmities, in order to throw 
light upon the course of human affairs, the rise and fall of 
nations, and to hail, under this pretext, the introduction of phi/- 
siology (under the name of pathology) into history, would be to 
mutilate that great and noble study, and lower it from the emi- 
nence, on which it has ever stood, to a most degraded position.* 

The action attributed to disease on the determinations of the 
will has been made, by M. Carriere, the subject of the follow- 

* Analysee par M. S. Cerise [Annal. M6d. Psych.), t. vi. 1846. De la 
premiere edition de cet ouvrage. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 357 

ing reflections : " Let a man depart ever so little from the com- 
mon road, lie will be called diseased ; let him have a rich imagi- 
nation, which strives to bring before his mental vision the scenes 
of an unknown world, he will be called visionary and mad. No- 
thing will be perfect but vulgarity, nor any one be considered 
in health but vulgar men. 

" Such a conclusion as this will, before long, be mistrusted by 
sound medical sense, and will soon be rejected."* 

Thus, to attempt to make doctrines, belief, and convictions, 
depend on the sickly state of the body, is to advance a propo- 
sition which may be true of the character and disposition, but 
is entirely false as it relates to the phenomena of consciousness 
which passes in the mind. Psychological facts do not act like 
those of physiology ; but, like them, they have their own laws. 
If they are mysteriously united by certain points of affinity, 
they differ completely in their nature; the one being impalpable, 
the other tangible. 

The decided influence, then, of a morbid organic state in the 
production of hallucinations is, in substance, the doctrine of 
those who desire the introduction of physiology into history ; 
whilst, on the contrary, the integrity of reason in the hallucina- 
tions of many celebrated characters, the secondary influence of 
the organs in limited cases, is our philosophical point of view ; 
and to the elucidation of which we consecrate the following 
pages. 

In the chapter of hallucinations as compatible with reason, 
we collected cases suitable to form a foundation for this part of 
our work; it now remains for us to interpret their signification, 
and describe their results. 

Sensorial impressions are incessantly reaching the brain 
through the nerves, which act as conductors; they there accu- 
mulate in numbers, surpassing all possible calculation. At the 
moment when these sensations touch the organ, and cause per- 
ception, a change occurs in their nature ; they are absorbed by 
the cerebral substance, and appear to lose their sensible signs. 
The mind may evoke them from the first moment of their ap- 
pearance until the latest period of life, and reproduce them 

* Lelut, de PAmulette de Pascal, analy. par M. E. Carriere. Gazette 
Medieale, 1847, p. 269. 



358 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

with the greatest fidelity, by means of phonetic and graphic 
signs ; but the eye will not perceive them with those brilliant 
colors and lively characters which they at first exhibited. 

There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Some men have 
the capacity of extracting animated sensations from the brain, 
and of seeing things as if they were really before them. Seve- 
ral physiological or pathological conditions, reveries, dreams, 
concentrations of thought, prolonged meditations, the interme- 
diate time between waking and sleeping, fever, or insanity, may 
revivify sensations, and give to them the force of reality. 

The silent transformation of sensations was too essential for 
us not to press a consideration of the subject. We will now 
commence the psychological study of the causes, which at times 
may give to sensations the appearance of reality. 

If the principal fact, the production of the image of the sen- 
sible sign, be everywhere the same, its mode must necessarily 
vary in individuals, and according to circumstances. We can- 
not consider as identical, the hallucinations of the madman and 
the child, the dreamer, the poet, the thinker, the man power- 
fully preoccupied or engrossed, he who recognizes their falsity, 
and does not allow them to influence his conduct, or he who 
yields to them as to the prevalent belief of the age, as the action 
of certain substances, etc. etc. No man who believes in that 
religion which has performed such wonders, rendered such im- 
portant services,* given birth to so many prodigies, and which is 
daily a thousand times more useful than all the united efforts of 
philanthropy, but will reject the opinion that prophets, apostles, 
and saints were hallucinated madmen. There is no philosopher 
or partisan of those beautiful doctrines, often marked, it is true, 
with error, but which have no less proved of what the human 
intellect is capable, who consents to rank the greatest minds of 
antiquity with mad hallucinists. 

The material part of an idea, its image, is very early mani- 
fested in man. It is a fact that many children, perhaps all, 
have the faculty of imagining phantoms in the dark. With some 
this power is simply passive, but others have the will, or semi- 
will to call up or excite these singular effects. " A child whom 

* Revue des Deux Mondes. Du Mouvement Catholique, par M. Louan- 
dre, Nov. et Dec. 1843. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 359 

I questioned on the subject," says one writer, "replied: 'I can 
tell them to come, and they come ; but they come sometimes 
when I do not call them.' " 

When imagination, sparkling with youth, lavishes its trea- 
sures, visions in the shape of chimeras and golden dreams take 
possession of the mind ; whole hours are devoted to fanciful pro- 
jects; but, whatever may be their fascination, a simple effort of 
reason suffices to sweep away all this vapory phantasmagoria, 
like clouds or columns of smoke dispersed by the wind. From 
the heights of our fanciful transformations, from being rich, 
powerful, authors, or kings, we once again become "Gros Jean." 
Doubtless, a powerful moral or physical emotion may transform 
these undecided forms into hallucinations ; but it is no less cer- 
tain that we are always masters of ourselves when we can dis- 
miss them at will. 

One fact is decided by a research into psychological phenomena, 
which is painful to contemplate, namely, that delirious conceptions 
are forever flitting around man, similar to those insects that are 
seen whirling around by thousands on a fine summer evening. 
Dim, confused, and unimportant whilst reason is on the watch, 
they are the constituent elements of those castles in the air to 
which we all pay tribute. In dreams their power increases, and 
their physiognomy is more decided ; then it is, says Conolly, 
that they show themselves to us in the shape of landscapes, seas, 
rivers, and countries. Now they arise as vast cities, impenetra- 
ble forests, objects infinitely varied, fantastic costumes, and 
grotesque architecture ; now they are persons of different classes, 
variously occupied; figures grotesque, deformed, or threatening ; 
the beginning, middle, or end of thoughts ; voices which whisper 
and reveal all that is hidden in the depths of the heart ; in a 
word, the pictured forms of those thousand combinations which 
compose thought. 

In the midst of these dreams, wild and delirious ideas may be 
seen inundating the brain through all its senses, and sometimes 
even with a consciousness of the fact. In fever, this series of 
imperfect ideas, which buzzed around harmlessly whilst reason 
was sound, occupy its place, drive away those which belong 
to attention and comparison, and reign there as sovereigns. We 
insist on this psychological fact, which appears to us a power- 



360 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ful argument in favor of the predominance of moral over physi- 
cal causes in the production of mental diseases. 

Men who are powerfully preoccupied with one idea, may, hy 
a prolonged concentration of it, see, by their mental eyes, that 
idea materialized. In proportion as the excitement diminishes, 
the thoughts return to their natural course. The image has been 
the culminating point of their meditation. They believe that 
they have seen, perhaps they have seen, that which was the 
object of their interests ; nothing unusual, nothing abnormal, 
has marked this phenomenon, and what dissipates all their 
doubt is, that the resolves and actions which are the conse- 
quences of this exclusive thought, which has, as it were, en- 
grossed their whole being, will prove perfect in their results, and 
attest the power of the most noble faculties of the mind. 

Thus we believe that hallucination exists in a multitude of 
different cases. If it constitutes the phenomenon of an over- 
excitement of the brain, it is far from being a constant symp- 
tom of derangement. In a great portion of mankind it is 
almost a normal condition ; but these considerations, howsoever 
interesting, can give us but a very confused and inaccurate idea 
of it. We must endeavor to sound its depths, develop its 
secrets, and, above all, seek to discover what has been its real 
influence on so many illustrious men, who have been in conse- 
quence the subjects of bitter censure. 

We have never attempted to separate mind from matter, 
although these two substances are entirely distinct, and the influ- 
ence of the one appears to us very superior to that of the other. 
That they are bound together by a mysterious link is undeniable, 
but facts in the domain of psychology have a mode of being 
completely different from those in the physical domain. We, 
therefore, willingly allow that hallucinations are of a nervous 
nature, and have their seat in the brain ; remarking only on the 
possibility that other parts, especially the ganglionic system, 
concur in the production of certain impressions ; but in order 
that they may adopt the form of an idea, they must be sub- 
mitted to the action of the nervous centre ; there is no intel- 
lectual operation without its concurrence. 

In speaking of the secondary causes of hallucinations, we 
have described, in the medical portion of the work, the influence 
of nervous and sanguine elements in the production of halluci- 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 361 

nations, without being always cognizant of their mode of action, 
that being the material limit to which we cannot attain. 

The uneasiness caused by sleeplessness, doubtless contributes 
to augment the state of erythismus, favorable to hallucinations ; 
and this is a very common phenomenon. The dread of darkness 
still more augments this disposition. In this case, it is really 
an excess of sensibility ; but the conditions appear to us different 
when the diseased person is going to sleep, or when he is on the 
point of awaking. In the first case, there exists fatigue pro- 
duced by the exertions of the day ; in the second, the repose 
consequent on sleep, or at least a different state from waking. 
The mode of circulation and the nervous condition, cannot be the 
same in these three cases. The production of hallucinations 
would then have much analogy with the delirium produced by 
cerebral inflammation and abstinence ; with convulsions, caused 
by congestion of the blood, and also by a great loss of blood; 
that is to say, that the same phenomenon may be produced 
under exactly opposite organic circumstances. As to hallucina- 
tions which occur by day, they are also influenced by a greater 
activity in the circulation of the blood, and of the nervous sys- 
tem, owing to the concentration of the mind on one fixed idea ; 
but, again, these causes are secondary; something more is needed 
to produce hallucinations. 

In order fully to understand hallucinations in a psychological 
point of view, let us pause a few moments to consider the nature 
of the ideas which we have studied, in the chapter on causes, 
and on civil, social, and individual influences. They may be 
referred to two sources ; those based on the senses (sensual 
ideas, secondary), and those which have their origin in the mind 
and in God (spiritual ideas, primary). 

The part which the senses are called upon to act should be 
exactly understood ; their function is to transmit to the brain 
the image of external objects; to give it notice of their presence 
by a particular movement; but they do not impart to it the idea. 
Thus, a man who cannot read, sees written characters, his eye 
distinguishes, but his mind does not comprehend them. 

"Idea," says M. l'Abbe Forrichon, "is the notion, which 
passes from one individual to another, from generation to gene- 
ration ; whereas the image is only communicated by the object. 
The idea is understood, the image is pictured. The idea rests 



362 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

in the thought, the impression on the senses. Thus, even in 
taking sensations for the point of comparison, it cannot be 
rigorously said, Nihil est in iiitellectu, quod non prius fuerit in 
sensu. 

" Ideas, furnished by the senses, are the first which are mani- 
fested in the order of evolution ; this does not, in any respect, 
mean that they pre-exist mental ideas ; however, the epithet 
secondary, which we have applied to them, sufficiently points 
out our meaning. It could not be otherwise, without our being 
other than we are, and occupying a different rank in creation ; 
such are the ideas of a child. But the vividness of sensations 
at this age, their rapidity, number, and mobility, would naturally 
predispose it to intellectual disorders, which is just what has 
been observed. If the impression which it receives of a body 
in contact with the senses be too powerful, or the organ too 
weak to sustain the emotion, the result will be trouble and con- 
fusion instead of a distinct perception of sensible attributes. 
Thus too bright a light produces darkness. In order that the 
impression be clear and the notion correct, it is necessary that 
the object impressed and the sensitive organ preserve between 
themselves suitable correspondences, which continue the condi- 
tion of a normal sensation. 

The brain, which may be considered an immense reservoir, in 
which are deposited the millions of images brought by the 
senses, enjoys the faculty, by aid of certain conventional signs, 
of reflecting them on the instant, or reproducing them at a 
greater or less subsequent period, in the absence of the external 
stimulus; in the same way that a man feels pain in an ampu- 
tated limb. This faculty is brought into play by attention, 
comparison, imagination, memory, and association. By virtue 
of one of these influences, the mind may evoke events and 
scenes which have just happened or which occurred long since ; 
it can also select, from actual impressions, those which are most 
pleasing, in order to form new combinations, which represent 
imaginary scenes and events. These operations become more 
easy in proportion as the reveries are indulged in. 

For a certain time, the mind can accept these pictures as 
realities, but, on the least recall of attention, the vision vanishes, 
and this change is owing to reason, which compares these fanci- 
ful creations with the actual condition of the external world. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 363 

Association of ideas, -which Browne calls simple suggestion, 
hears so pertinent a part in intellectual operations, that it is 
important to consider its most striking traits. Ahercrombie 
divides it into three sections ; philosophic or natural association, 
local or accidental association, and arbitrary or fictitious associa- 
tion. The first takes place when anything on which the attention 
is fixed is found, by an operation of the mind, to be associated 
with a foreseen fact to which it connects itself, or to a subject 
on which it is destined to throw light ; the second is only formed 
by fortuitous connection; thus an accident occurring to a certain 
person, or in a certain place, is only recalled at the sight of the 
person or place. This principle of association may be very 
advantageously applied as a moral remedy, in many distressing 
maladies. 

Dr. Rush has mentioned a circumstance in his work, which, 
without bearing directly on our subject, is very interesting on 
more than one account. 

Case CXLVI. " When I was at school," says Dr. Rush, " in 
Cecil County, Maryland, I often went, on holidays, with my 
companions, to visit an eagle's nest, which was placed on the 
summit of a dead tree. The daughter of the farmer in whose 
field the tree grew, and with whom I became acquainted, mar- 
ried and settled forty years ago. From time to time, we met 
and talked of our childhood's play, of the country pleasures of 
that period, and amongst other things, of the eagle's nest. 

" Some years since, I was called in to attend this woman, 
who was in the last stage of typhoid fever. On my arrival, I 
attracted her eye, and said to her, in a pleasant and cheerful 
voice : ' The eagle's nest.' She seized my hand, could not pro- 
nounce a word, but her countenance expressed powerful emotion. 
From that moment, she began to mend. She is now well, and 
never fails, when we meet, to salute me with the words: 'The 
eagle's nest.' "* 

The third and last kind of association, called arbitrary or 
fictitious, is generally produced by a voluntary effort of the 
mind ; the facts have no other connection than those which arise 
from this effort ; for example, a piece of paper put into a snuff- 

* Benjamin Rush, Medical Inquiries and Observations on the Diseases 
of the Mind, 5th ed. Philadelphia, 1835. Vide Ahercrombie, op. cit. 



364 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

box, as a reminder of something to be recollected. There is a 
variety of this third species which is produced without the 
least cause being apparent. Circumstances entirely forgotten 
suddenly start up, we know not how, and cause infinite combi- 
nations. 

We have seen that there are two sources of ideas in man ; 
those which proceed from objects which strike the senses, and 
those which are termed general, such as the ideas of existence, 
quality, causality, connection or analogy, time, order, law, good, 
equity, &c. These are the attributes of mind, as sensible quali- 
ties are those of the body, &c. 

This division of ideas — borrowed from the spiritualists, of 
whom we are proud to be a disciple, which yet does not prevent 
our placing a proper value on the uses of the organs — is very 
important in the subject which occupies us; for persuaded, as 
we are, that primitive ideas cannot be impaired, and that their 
essence, their type, experiences no touch of insanity, we think, 
on the contrary, that sensual ideas — the most numerous, it is 
true — contain the exclusive materials of derangement of mind ; 
and if a superficial observation of facts would seem to show that 
the first are sometimes drawn into the fatal circle, a more atten- 
tive examination proves that only the sensible form, which the 
imperfection of our nature obliges us to give to immaterial things, 
is affected. 

We can form no conception of spiritual things without endow- 
ing them with a face and a form. We comprehend, it is true, 
that this mode is defective, even false ; that these things have a 
mode of being which does not fall within the range of the 
senses ; it is one of those primary truths which has only to be 
stated to be believed; but our finite nature, encompassed by 
matter, to which it is bound by innumerable ties, falls back 
incessantly into the same errors. As it receives its first appren- 
ticeship from the senses, and its primitive ideas are only 
developed by language, education, and tradition ; constantly 
obliged to abstract itself; being, in the greater number of cases, 
only struck with the material origin of this operation, it only, 
by consequence, sees, in its abstractions, the qualities of the 
bodies to which it naturally connects itself. Thus, in saying 
that a stick is white, long, and pointed, each of these qualities 
is joined to the image of the stick; in like manner, when we 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 365 

affirm a man to be good, amiable, and just, these divers attri- 
butes associate themselves with the human figure. Such is the 
case, we believe, in the spiritual world ; we attach a certain form 
to ideas which emanate from it, and their attributes become 
materialized in our brain. A closer examination proves that 
this process of mind is purely artificial, and that sensible signs 
attached to spiritual ideas do not develop them more clearly to 
our senses. Besides, independence of mind is as distinct and 
as entire beneath illusory sensations, as in those which are regu- 
lated and conformed to the external world. " In fact," says M. 
l'Abbe' Forrichon, " the diseased person who thinks he sees ser- 
pents, acts exactly as we should do under the reality. But 
although he may hold incoherent discourses, these discourses 
must not be confounded with his sensations, and considered as 
the work of the brain which produces the latter, because the 
consequences drawn therefrom argue another origin, and prove 
that they are not, like his sensations, a physiological production 
of the encephalon. It is probably not the brain which alarms 
itself with its own strange creations ; its pathological state is 
only a certain mode of being as indifferent to itself as any other 
condition would be, in relation to matter."* 

It would be much more astonishing if the sick man, with sen- 
sations so different from those which men in health around him 
experience, should receive the same impressions with them ; 
then, indeed, reason would be perverted and extravagant. Let 
us beware of concluding that because the brain may occasion 
the delirium, it is therefore the brain that thinks and reasons ; 
as well might we say that the eye expatiates on colors, because 
it makes us distinguish them with more or less of truth. 

This being decided, it now remains to inquire how impressions 
derived from the senses may be reproduced, without their con- 
currence, with all the characters of reality. It is, in fact, evi- 
dent that hallucinations, in psychological language, cannot be 
considered as an error of the senses, since nothing strikes them 
from without. Doubtless they are formed in blindness and 
in sleep, of images placed in the brain, formerly brought there 
by the senses, and which appear to be outwardly manifested, 

* M. l'Abb6 Forrichon, Le Materialism et la Phrenologie combattues 
dans leurs fondemens, pp. 240, 243, Paris, 1840. 



366 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

under influences which must be appreciated. It would appear 
that the emotion formed within from external causes, is executed 
in an inverse sense. Malebranche says that the nervous fibres 
may be affected in two ways ; either by the portion that is with- 
out the brain, or by that within the brain. If these little fibres 
are moved within the brain by some cause, the mind recognizes 
something external. Charles Bonnet, and other logicians, after 
having laid down as a principle that the latter part of every 
sensation is connected with a special and actual molecular state 
of the brain, repeats, that the same sensation should be repro- 
duced each time that the same material combination is repro- 
duced in the encephalic mass. Such is also the explanation 
given by Meyer, professor at the University of Halle, in his 
Essay on Apparitions.* • 

When external and internal sensations reach the brain in a 
normal state, we are unconscious of their arrival ; but if our 
attention be strongly excited, the material form, the sensible 
sign may immediately show itself, which leaves no doubt of their 
presence in the organ. Thus, when we have an intense desire 
to represent an object, we close our eyes, and it is probable that 
it will soon appear, confusedly it may be, but yet with sufficient 
distinctness for us to form an idea of it. A more powerful 
concentration of thought might allow of our seeing it in day- 
light, and with open eyes. The image, at first feeble, pale, and 
indistinct in outline, seems as though it would vanish every 
moment ; but by degrees the outline strengthens, the colors be- 
come more vivid, and the perception of the object is complete. 
Finally, with a still higher degree of meditation, a more entire 
detachment from the external world, the image which has per- 
formed these different evolutions in the brain comes forth, and 
places itself in a material form before the eyes. 

These psychological facts are almost always noticed in indivi- 
duals devoted to works requiring deep meditation ; they are, 
above all, very common with novelists and poets, who, in their 
transitions from the real to the ideal world, are often led to take 
the conceptions of their minds and the products of their imagi- 
nations for realities. 

* Essay on Apparitions. Attributed to M. Meyer, Professor at the Uni- 
versity of Halle, A. D. 1748. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A KELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 367 

In proportion as their creations are renewed and repeated in 
the brain, they acquire a degree of vivacity which ends by over- 
powering all external sensations ; and as clearness is the prin- 
cipal quality of a mental conception which makes us believe in 
the reality of the object represented, it is not surprising that 
men of deep thought, who concentrate their whole attention on 
one point, making it a focus of light, should be more exposed 
than others to similar illusions. 

In like circumstances, the mind acquires a more or less power- 
ful excitement in order to produce these illusions ; but there are 
conditions in which they are produced every instant in a much 
more sensible manner ; we would speak of reverie, of the inter- 
mediate state between sleeping and waking, and of dreams. It 
often happens, for example, in dreams, that when an object has 
been strongly impressed on the mind when awake, it reappears 
clearly and distinctly during sleep. 

It has been asked why the causes of these illusions do not 
entirely destroy the normal action of the brain. Crichton had 
replied to this query before Gall wrote : "It is because sensorial 
impressions, the association of ideas, and the operations of the 
mind, not all having their seat in that portion of the brain 
which receives the morbid impression, must continue to exist 
normally ; whence it results that the individual must think and 
act as a rational man, excepting on the subjects wdiich relate to 
his illusion." We view the subject in a different manner from 
the English historian ; but, as an historic record, we do not feel 
at liberty to suppress his explanation. 

Prolonged meditation, a great preoccupation of mind, or a 
powerful or violent emotion may induce similar results. 

Observation, in fact, proves, that persons on the point of per- 
ishing, have seen the detailed map of their whole lives unrolled 
before them, thus verifying the passage of Scripture : At the 
day of judgment, every act will be retraced in the twinkling of 
an eye. "The last minute of the combatant," says the Arabian 
proverb, "is the mirror of his life; all that is dear to him is 
then present to his thoughts." 

After intense occupation, where all the faculties have been 
directed to one point, material forms may remain visible for a 
length of time, although the subject ceases to engage the mind. 



368 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The celebrated artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, on quitting his 
study, where he had been many hours engaged in painting, took 
the street lamps for trees, and men and women for bushes agi- 
tated by the breeze.* 

Theory of Attention. — In the psychological analysis of the 
faculties which exert a more or less marked influence on the 
production of hallucinations, we have placed attention in the 
foreground. 

It is important, before proceeding farther, that we thoroughly 
explain the value of the theory to which this faculty serves 
as a foundation. Viewing it in relation to the intellectual 
and moral world, we do not believe in the omnipotence of the 
systems which reduce all to one law. The history of philosophy 
has proved, a thousand times, that if a certain number of facts 
are in perfect accordance with the new system, another certain 
number are in direct opposition to it. This, according to our 
view, is one of the consequences of our finite nature. 

We are not, then, surprised that M. Baillarger has declared, 
in an interesting pamphlet, entitled Hallucinations ; their 
Causes, and the Diseases which they Characterize, that the pro- 
duction of hallucinations is particularly favored by the invo- 
luntary exercise of memory and imagination, the suspension of 
external impressions, and the internal excitation of sensorial 
organs; or, in other terms, by the weakening, relaxation, and 
real slackening of attention. 

It is evident that the cases cited by this medical observer 
support his opinion. We will remark that hallucinations pro- 
duced by reveries, dreams, and the intermediate state between 
sleeping and waking, have another origin than those attributed 
by us to intense application of mind. It appears to us equally 
positive that the visions of the famous painter, Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, were caused by a fatigued brain. 

This point settled, we will now show, by conclusive facts, that, 
in a great many cases, attention exerts a real influence on the 
state of hallucination, and perfectly explains the visions and 
apparitions of many renowned personages. 

The power of reproducing hallucinations by an effort of the 
will has been described by numerous observers. 

* Conolly, p. 119, op. cit. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 369 

On this subject, Je*rome Cardan thus expresses himself: 
"Video quae volo, oculis, non vi mentis."* 

One of the most curious cases of this nature is that of the 
painter mentioned in the early part of this work. He only 
needed to seek in his brain for the image of the model which he 
wished to see, than it was reproduced in the arm-chair, with all 
the vividness of life. Blake, the Seer, conversed tranquilly 
with the various dead who came to visit him, and described to 
the surprised witnesses their costume, physiognomy, and con- 
versation. Talma, by the force of his will, metamorphosed the 
spectators of his immense talent into skeletons. 

M. Miche'a writes as follows: "A monomaniac of a cultivated 
and ardent mind instantaneously converted all the ideas which 
passed through his mind into false visual perceptions. He had only 
to imagine a thing or a person, when it immediately assumed a 
material form. One day," said M. Miche'a, "we found him 
with eyes fixed, a smiling mouth, and in the act of clapping his 
hands in sign of applause. He did not hear us open the door 
of his room. To our question : ' What does this mean ? What 
are you doing?' 'I am,' he replied, 'like the fool that Horace 
speaks of : I am seeing an imaginary play. I was wearied by 
my fireside ; I am fond of the beauties of the opera, and have 
been playing to myself the ballet of The Sylphide ; and when 
you touched me on the shoulder, I was applauding Taglioni, 
with whose graceful and noble dancing I had never before been 
so much charmed. "f 

A young man, said M. Baudry, was much engaged in pro- 
jects of canal constructing. One day, after having deeply con- 
centrated his attention on this subject, he marked on a map the 
line of a canal which was to pass through his country. Sud- 
denly he saw a pamphlet, in a yellow covering, with this inscrip- 
tion : Project for opening a Canal through the Plain of Sologna 
(when proofs thus are read, it is evident what is passing in the 
mind) ; for some minutes, he read in it ideas which confirmed 

* De Rerum varietate, Lugd. t. viii. de 43, p. 410. See also Maisonneuve 
(Recherches et Observations sur PEpilepsie, p. 295). This author speaks 
of a young epileptic, who sometimes amused himself by wishing to see 
some grotesque object, and scarcely did his imagination form it than it was 
faithfully pictured to his eyes. 

f Du delire des Sensations, p. 94. Paris, 1846. 
24 



370 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

his own; the fanciful pamphlet then disappeared, and he re- 
sumed his work.* 

M. Moreau, of Tours, has given in the Gazette des Hopitaux, 
the case of one of his patients who could instantaneously obtain 
hallucinations of sight ; to effect which, he had only to incline 
his head a little forward. A very learned physician, who is a 
fresh example to us of the truth of the proverb : ' All is luck, or 
ill luck in this world,' relates that, being a prey to a nervous 
affection, which however left him the free exercise of his facul- 
ties, he became subject to occasional hallucinations of sight ; 
but he perceived that they came when his mind dwelt on them. 
Curious to study this singular phenomenon, he several times 
daguerreotyped, as it were, the elements of his thoughts. They 
exhibited themselves to him in all the colors of reality, and 
remained an indefinite time. Having remarked that the con- 
stant repetition of these hallucinations caused him real uneasi- 
ness, he threw them off by an energetic effort of resolution. 

Dr. M. M., whose intelligence and learning none can dispute, 
in referring to a communication on hallucinations, made known 
to the Medical Society of the twelfth arrondissement (at a meet- 
ing of the 6th February, 1847) that he could invoke hallucina- 
tions at will. At first the object was confused, like a cloud; by 
degrees it became more decided, and terminated in a very dis- 
tinct apparition. In his lectures to his pupils, he could never 
so well describe the parts under observation as when, by a con- 
centration of thought, he could give them the form of reality, 
and make them subjective, and his descriptions have much less 
lucidity when they are not thus naturally placed before him. 
He can easily dispel these colored impressions. 

To these different facts we may add the hallucinations of 
ecstatics, of men who have concentrated their thoughts with 
great intenseness on one object ; they are then evidently medi- 
tation perfected ; and to suppose, as has been done, that in 
this case they succeed also the loss of attention, is certainly to J 
be drawn into an error by a systematic idea. The opinion of 
Meister on the intermediate state between waking and sleep, 
establishes, however, a very important distinction, namely, that 
this state may be the occasion of deeds of the greatest conse- 

* Baudry, Essai sur les Hallucinations, These, Paris, 1833, p. 17. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 371 

quence. Let us add, that a great number of hallucinations take 
place as well in the day as during the night. After all, if the 
•weakening of attention be favorable to hallucinations, this ex- 
planation cannot apply to all cases, and in particular to halluci- 
nations compatible with reason. 

Tension of mind may, in a sphere much less elevated, and 
exercised under certain conditions, such as darkness, the silence 
of night, and complete solitude, create fantastic figures, and 
give a frightful aspect to trifles. We have already called atten- 
tion to this fact. In -nervous and impressible persons, whom 
education has not preserved from fearful and superstitious ideas, 
the brain is assailed with painful conceptions, which occasion 
them a sentiment of fear, sometimes even of terror. If, in this 
state, the eye be fixed on indecisive forms, instantly the phan- 
toms of their imagination assume a bodily shape, and are trans- 
formed into real apparitions, which strike them with terror. 
How often, in the flickering light of a fire nearly extinguished, 
have we seen affinities to well-known forms, the resemblance to 
which have become more perfect in proportion as we have con- 
centrated attention upon them ! There is no doubt that the 
apparitions of persons long deceased are owing to this disposition 
of mind. The great doctors of divinity have rejected the reality 
of these visions, which are thus explained by hallucinations. 

St. Athanasius maintains that when souls are disincumbered 
of their tenement of clay, they have no more communication with 
mortals. St. Augustine has remarked that if the souls of the 
dead could visit their friends, he was convinced that his mother, 
who had followed him by land and by sea, would appear to tell 
him what she had learned in the other world, and to give him 
good counsel. 

It is easy to believe that when the brain is in this condition, 
imagination exerts its influence. Hallucination adopts, in most 
individuals, the impress of their habitual ideas, and also rarely 
has for its object sensations entirely unknown to those who ex- 
perience them. " Imagination," says Bernardin, " usually gives 
to them forms of which the person had already acquired a first 
idea, either by reading, tradition, or some other means. In some 
cases hallucinations are the exaggeration of the faculty which cer- 
tain men possess of representing by thought images seen at an 
anterior period, or of clothing those images with new attributes. 



372 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

How often, in fact, do we think we are hearing a melody which 
has impressed us agreeably !* 

This opinion is upheld by M. Eusebe Salverte. " Imagina- 
tion," says he, " combines received impressions, but creates none. 
In the phantoms of sleep, and the delirium of waking, nothing 
is presented which has not been seen, or felt, or heard. Terror, 
sadness, inquietude, and preoccupation, easily produce that in- 
termediate state between sleeping and waking, in which dreams 
become real visions. Cassius Parmensis, proscribed by the 
triumvirs, fell asleep, a prey to fears which were but too well 
justified by his position. A man of frightful aspect appeared to 
him, telling him that he was his evil genius. Accustomed to 
believe in superhuman beings, Cassius doubted not the reality of 
the apparition. To superstitious minds, such a vision is the 
presage of a violent death, which a banished man could not long 
expect to avoid. 

An analogous explanation will apply to the vision of Brutus 
on the eve of the Battle of Philippi. 

Plutarch relates this celebrated apparition as follows : — 

Case CXLYII. " Brutus was about to move with his whole 
army. One dark night, having only a small lamp in his tent, 
which gave but a feeble light, his whole army being wrapped in 
silence and sleep, he was plunged in deep meditation, a thousand 
different thoughts revolving in his brain, when suddenly he 
heard some one enter his tent. Looking towards the aperture, 
he saw a monstrous figure with a horrible countenance, which 
approached him, and stood by his bedside, without speaking. 

"Ina firm voice he inquired: 'Who art thou? Art thou a 
man? Art thou a god? Wherefore dost thou come into my 
tent, and what wilt thou?' The phantom replied: 'Brutus, I 
am thy evil genius, and thou wilt soon see me on the plains of 
Philippi.' — 'Well,' replied Brutus, unmoved, 'then we shall 
meet again there;' after which the phantom vanished. Brutus 
then called his attendants, who said that they had neither seen 
nor heard anything. 

"When the day broke, he sought Cassius, to whom he related 
the vision. Then Cassius, who was a disciple of the doctrines 

* Renaudin, Considerations sur les formes de P Alienation Mentale ob- 
serves a Stephansfeld, 1841. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 373 

of Epicurus, replied that the senses were deceitful, and that 
imagination created a thousand strange and hideous phantoms. 
'Besides,' said he, 'jour body, exhausted and heated by exer- 
tion, also heats, subtilizes, and perverts your imagination. It is 
not possible that demons and genii can exist; but even if there 
were such beings, it is absurd to suppose that they would assume 
the appearance and the voice of man.' "* 

This hallucination, whatever explanation may be given of it, 
had no influence on the conduct of Brutus; his acts were those 
of a superior man, and no one can accuse him of madness. 

In the same catalogue we would place the dream of the Em- 
peror Julian: " On the night before his death,'' says Ammianus 
Marcellinus, " a genius appeared to fly from him in consternation; 
it was the genius of the empire ; the image, which everywhere 
met his sight on his coin, on his standard, and probably also 
in his tent. Disquieted by the scarcity which distressed his 
troops, aware that a religious faith contrary to his own existed 
in the heart of his army, and incited numerous enemies against 
him, and on the eve of a decisive battle, is it surprising that the 
sleep which overpowered him should be disturbed by sinister 
dreams ? Is it surprising that the enthusiastic disciple of Theur- 
gic philosophers, whose doctrine ascribed so much importance 
and power to genii, should see in a dream the genius of the 
empire mourning, and ready to abandon him, and should believe 
in its reality ? 

Hallucinations do not alone consist in the reproduction of 
ideas habitual to individuals, they are also frequently remini- 
scences, recollections of sensations long since deposited in the 
brain, and recalled by the well-known law of association, to 
which a physical or moral cause communicates all the vivacity 
of actual sensations. There is no doubt that the material forms 
given by painters and sculptors to the spirits mentioned in the 

* Daeier, Tie des homines illnstres de Plutarque, pp. 610 to 612, t. vii. 
Paris, 1731. In a note, Daeier says : "This discourse of Cassius is both 
true and false, for undoubtedly there are spirits; but it is with the appear- 
ance of spirits as with dreams, there are both false and true ones ; some 
created by imagination, some sent by God." At the distance of a century, 
M. Lelut writes, in his Amulette de Pascal (p. 15) : "It were well to distin- 
guish, as that great mystic Gerson recommends, between the inspirations 
of heaven and those of imagination. " 



374 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

sacred books — forms so generally spread abroad in works, in 
religious edifices, pictures, and portraits — have been the origin of 
saints, angels, and demons as seen in a host of apparitions. 
It is therefore not surprising that when, by a certain organic 
disposition, superstitious or unenlightened persons are exposed 
to hallucinations, these forms should be their subjects. 

Amongst cases which prove the influence of association in the 
phenomenon of hallucinations, we will relate the following: — 

Case CXLVIII. A young lady, twenty-three years of age, of 
a cultivated mind, an agreeable countenance, and apparently of 
a good constitution, confided to us, one day, with much grief and 
anxiety, that she was possessed by a frightful impulse, which 
she was fearful she could not resist. On being interrogated as 
to the origin of this impulse, she said, that when seven years old 
she had been much terrified by witnessing a person in an epilep- 
tic fit; that at seventeen, she heard a noise which, recalling the fit 
to her mind, also brought back the fear with which she had then 
been seized, and the terror was accompanied by some hysteric 
symptoms ; that twenty days before consulting us, a similar noise 
occurring in the street, she looked out and saw a man struck with 
epilepsy; that ever since, the hallucination was momentarily pro- 
duced, even when she was alone in her chamber; that this image 
had pursued her for several days, notwithstanding the efforts of 
her reason, still sound, but sustained with difficulty. Hysteric 
symptoms accompanied this position, and, under these influences, 
the frightful impulse arose, against which she wished to defend 
herself, and from which she is now entirely released.* 

Struck with the play of mind in these hallucinations, some 
psychologists have attributed them to memory, some to imagina- 
tion. Reid has protested strongly against both these opinions. 
"Imagination," says he, "brings no belief in its train ; it does not 
contain any idea of existence or non-existence. The sensation 
which I experience obliges me to believe in its actual existence ; 
the recollection of that sensation produces a belief in its past 
existence. Such is the nature of these operations; they are 
simple and primitive actions. Now, hallucination differs from 
both, because it brings with it the idea of the presence of an 

* Cerise, Des Fonctions et des Maladies Nerveuses, p. 489, 1 vol. 8vo. 
Paris, 1842. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 375 

object which does not exist. It is certain that hallucination can- 
not be made an exclusive phenomenon of the imagination, be- 
cause that faculty is only destined to receive or reproduce images, 
nor can it be a unique phenomenon of memory, because there is 
something beside reminiscence in hallucination. But if opinions 
differ as to the employment of the faculties interested, it is no 
less certain that imagination and memory are the principal actors 
in hallucinations. 

Some have wished to refer dreams and somnambulism in noc- 
turnal hallucinations exclusively to the action of the brain. 
There are no longer, say they, external or internal impressions 
which excite or provoke it. How, then, does it act? Evidently 
by a kind of spontaneity. It is impossible for us to admit that 
these intellectual operations are executed by the brain alone. 
That its co-operation is indispensable none will deny, but it must 
be aided by the mind. 

The influence of ideas on the production of hallucinations, 
which has been proved by observation, demands a few words on 
the creation and succession of false ideas. 

It is admitted as a principle that man came pure and free from 
the hands of his Creator. Had truth been ever his guide, use- 
ful and indispensable knowledge would alone have been imparted; 
but free to choose, led away by his passions, he forgot his origin 
and design, and thus, in the abuse of liberty, lost the knowledge 
of God and of himself. 

His origin and end no longer appearing but in a confused 
manner to his mind, imagination, which had broken the chains 
that bound it to reason, plunged him into a world of fables, ab- 
surd beliefs, singular illusions, and strange dreams. One epoch 
alone, that of the Middle Ages, affords proof with what facility 
these fantastic creations and marvellous tales were multiplied. 
The earth, sky, and waters were then made the habitations of 
invisible beings, with whom every one considered himself in con- 
nection. 

These erroneous persuasions, once asserted by a few enthu- 
siasts, were quickly imbibed by those around, over whom they 
exercised a guiding power. Then disseminated by that multi- 
tude, eager for the marvellous, who love better to believe than 
to examine, they were repeated, systematized, and introduced 
into the mind with the first rudiments of education. These 



376 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

errors, thus circulated, were accepted as truths; and the materials 
for social hallucinations were prepared, which were afterwards 
destined to attack individuals. 

The origin, then, of hallucinations must he sought for in the 
forgetfulness of two grand laws which govern man : the know- 
ledge of God and of self; whence flows the instinctive percep- 
tion of the unknown, the desire to believe, the love of the mar- 
vellous, the ardor for knowledge, and the thirst of the emotions. 

A critic, now in exile, politely rallied us on having attributed 
a like origin to hallucination. We differ too entirely ever to 
agree on this point. We will limit ourselves to one observa- 
tion. In perusing his article, in the most highly esteemed 
literary journal of the day, we gained no instruction, neither 
was the least light thrown upon the subject, for the very simple 
reason that the author treated it as a scholar, not as a practical 
man. We are firmly convinced that, even setting aside religious 
doctrines, we have analyzed and made known, as clearly as 
possible, the causes of hallucination; such at least is the opi- 
nion of one of the greatest writers of the day, the celebrated 
George Sand.* 

Wandering reason, deserting the path of sound philosophy, 
left the field free to imagination, which delights in paradoxes, 
dreams, and chimeras. She, mistress of the ground, brought 
forth those numerous false conceptions which served as food for 
fresh generations, and were the first elements of those strange 
mental aberrations of which we now treat. 

This connection between social errors, false opinions, imagi- 
nary creations, and hallucinations, is susceptible of a great 
development ; but we must be content to glance at it. Etiology 
has, however, established it on indubitable proofs. f 

We have endeavored, as much as possible, to estimate the 

* George Sand, Les Visions de la Nuit dans les Campagnes, Illustration, 
13 Decembre, 1851, p. 371. 

t The influence of false ideas on hallucinations in particular, and insan- 
ity in general, has long fixed our attention. We have made it the subject 
of a special paragraph in the ninth volume of the Bibliothe'que des Midecins 
praticiens [Maladies mentales, causes morales). This slight sketch, the ori- 
ginal idea of which may be found in our Memoires de Vinfluence de la civil- 
isation sur le Veveloppement de cesujet, will be the subject for a more com- 
plete work. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 377 

psychological phenomena which unite to produce hallucination. 
If this study has made the same impression on the mind of the 
reader as it has on our own, he will have arrived at this conclu- 
sion; that, in many cases, hallucination is nothing extraordinary, 
and may be considered almost as a normal phenomenon ; that 
it is consistent with reason ; whence it is easy to conceive how 
many celebrated men may have been hallucinists, under the 
influences described, without being at all insane. 

In order thoroughly to understand the coexistence of halluci- 
nations with reason, we will review two orders of facts, the one 
relating to assemblages of persons, the other peculiar to cele- 
brated characters, both drawn from history. The materials are 
so numerous that we shall find it difficult to make a selection. 
In order to avoid multiplying quotations, we will confine our- 
selves to one period — that of the Crusades. Few episodes offer 
so much interest in connection with the subject that engages us ; 
it may be called a perpetual mirage. Kings, generals, and sol- 
diers, were the daily witnesses of apparitions. 

First Order. — Historical hallucinations relating to a multi- 
tude of persons. — Peter the Hermit, the glorious deliverer of Je- 
rusalem, disgusted with men and the world, withdrew from them, 
to dwell amidst the most austere Cenobites. Fastings, prayer, 
and meditation excited his imagination. With the fervor of an 
apostle, and the courage of a martyr, his zeal acknowledged no 
obstacle, and all that he desired seemed easy. Nothing could 
resist the force of his eloquence, nor the fascination of his exam- 
ple. Such was the extraordinary man who gave the signal for 
the crusades; and who, without fortune or fame, succeeded, by 
the sole ascendency of his tears and prayers, in arousing the 
whole of the West, that it might precipitate itself on the East. 
With such dispositions of mind, full of his project, in the midst 
of the religious atmosphere in which he lived, is it surprising 
that his thoughts became imaged, that he maintained an habitual 
intercourse with heaven, and believed himself the instrument of 
its designs, and the depository of its will ? 

"In fact, Christianity," as Michaud remarks, "was mixed 
up, in the Middle Ages, with all civil law, recalled man to a 
sense of the duty he owed his country, and was blended in 
all the principles of social order. In the midst of the growing 
civilization of Europe, the Christian religion was united with all 



378 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

the interests of the people ; it was in some measure the founda- 
tion of society ; it was society itself. It is not, therefore, sur- 
prising that men grew passionately interested in its defence. 
The bonds of a Universal Church long contributed thus power- 
fully to entertain and favor enthusiasm, and the progress of the 
Holy wars. Whatever cause may have originated the crusades, 
it is certain that they never could have been undertaken with- 
out that union of religious feeling which doubled the strength 
of Christianity. The people, by the accordance of their senti- 
ments and passions, showed to the world what could be accom- 
plished by zeal and enthusiasm, which increases with communi- 
cation, by a belief which attracted a hundred different nations 
towards the same object, and whose faith could, as it is 
expressed in the gospel, move mountains. 

Everything then concurred to favor the production of halluci- 
nations ; religious sentiment, love of the marvellous, ignorance, 
anarchy, and the fear so recently entertained that the world was 
near to its close. Men were anticipating some great event, and 
were ready to welcome it with the more ardor because it suited 
the state of their minds. The voice of Peter the Hermit pro- 
duced an electrifying sensation; the deliverance of the Holy 
Land became the universal object. The very word East pos- 
sessed a magic which inflamed all imaginations ; it was the land 
where all the prodigies of the Old Testament were performed, 
the miracles of the New, and from whence still issued a thousand 
fabulous histories. 

The signal for the first crusade was hardly given, before 
apparitions commenced ; every one related his visions, the 
words he had heard, the commands he had received. To the 
eyes of the people and soldiery, the air was filled with signs. 
But it was principally when the crusaders had penetrated into 
Asia that prodigies were multiplied. 

At the battle of Dorylaeum, Saint George and Saint Demetrius 
were seen fighting in the ranks.* In the midst of the melee at 
Antioch, a celestial troop, armed and led by the martyrs, Saint 
George, Saint Demetrius, and Saint Theodore, descended to 
earth.f 

* Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, 6th edition, vol. i. p. 178. 
f Ibid. vol. i. p. 276. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 379 

During the hottest of the fight, at the siege of Jerusalem, 
Godfrey and Raymond perceived a knight waving a buckler on 
the Mount of Olives, and giving a signal to the Christian army 
to enter the town. They cried out that Saint George had come 
to the succor of the Christians. Meanwhile, it was noised 
abroad in the army that Pope Adhemar and several other cru- 
saders, who had fallen during the siege, had appeared at the 
head of the assailants and planted the standard of the Cross on 
the towers of Jerusalem. Tancred and the two Roberts, en- 
couraged by this account, made renewed efforts and forced an 
entrance into the place.* 

" On the day on which Saladin entered the holy city," says 
Rigord, " the monks of Argenteuil had seen the moon descend 
to the earth, and return again into heaven. In several churches 
the crucifix and images of saints had been observed to shed 
tears of blood in presence of the faithful. A Christian knight 
had, in a dream, seen an eagle holding seven javelins in his ta- 
lons, and soaring over Jerusalem uttering in a piercing accent, 
' Woe to Jerusalem !' " 

During the siege of Damietta, the Egyptian captives being 
conducted before the assembled princes and chiefs, related pro- 
digies of Christian bravery, and desired to see the men clothed 
in white, with white armor, whom they had seen fighting before 
the tower was taken. The warriors who had vanquished them 
were pointed out ; but they did not recognize in them that ter- 
% rible aspect and celestial strength, the remembrance of which 
filled them with terror. It was then, said an eye-witness, " the 
pilgrims understood that our Lord Jesus Christ had sent his 
angels to attack the tower, "f 

These quotations, selected from many others by the same 
author, prove, in the most positive manner, that hallucinations 
may attack a great number of persons without their being sus- 
pected of insanity. This phenomenon is explained by a combi- 
nation of circumstances on which we have already dwelt. 

We will proceed to exhibit this fact equally in the particular 
cases, which will serve us in the study of the hallucinations of 
celebrated men. 

* Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, vol. i. pp. 333-340. 
f Michaud, op. cit. vol. Hi. p. 318. 



380 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Second Order. — Historical individual hallucinations. — 
Loyola being dangerously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna, 
and obliged to remain inactive, turned bis thoughts towards 
religion, which he had always held in veneration. Distant re- 
ports of the revolt of Wurtemberg reached him in his retreat ; 
his mind instantly compassed all the consequences which would 
result, and he then was inspired with the project of that insti- 
tution which was to render such eminent service to religion. 
Full of an idea, the realization of which was to establish the 
papal throne, now so shaken, and Catholicism, so vigorously 
attacked, he prepared for battle. In contemplation of that im- 
mense struggle, all the difficulties of which he foresaw, his mind 
would naturally acquire the highest degree of energy and ten- 
sion, the most favorable state for the transformation of ideas 
into sensible signs or images. Moreover, let it not be forgotten, 
that it was in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and in 
Spain, where nothing was more usual than lonely excitation, the 
concentration of all the faculties on one single point, of all the 
forces of the mind on one thought. 

It was at this period of his life, according to historians, that 
he experienced visions and ecstasy. He saw the Virgin, who 
encouraged his projects and the mission which he proposed ; and 
he heard celestial voices. These hallucinations, admitting them 
scientifically to be such, were only the highest expression of his 
meditations, the result of profound convictions which formed the 
distinctive trait of the period. The thought which entirely 
occupied him, took a material and living form, and, as Shak- 
speare beautifully says, he saw it "in his mind's eye," but there 
was no touch of madness. 

In this case, the leading idea, instead of being intercerebral, 
became external ; it placed itself before him palpably, and pre- 
ceded him in all his enterprises. But with him, as with many 
celebrated personages, hallucination was but the auxiliary of a 
primary conception. 

In making a critical examination of any illustrious character, 
the age in which he lived must always be taken into considera- 
tion. If we place ourselves, for a moment, in the sixteenth 
century, in the midst of the citizens and populace of Spain, ar- 
dent, credulous, deeply animated with enthusiasm and a gloomy 
faith ; then visions, spectres, oracles, and all supernatural things 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 381 

are true, simple, and of daily occurrence. A phantom seen in 
the graveyard, or a saint in the street, would excite no surprise. 

The privations to which Loyola subjected himself, gave rise 
to other hallucinations. Thus he relates that a fiery serpent 
appeared afar off, came nearer and nearer, fascinated him with 
its eyes, then left him plunged in darkness. But this vision, 
brought on by fasting, continual prayer, and loss of sleep, belongs 
to those induced by sickness, and does not indicate insanity. It 
was one of the thousand trials through which the faithful must 
pass. Perhaps it was also a warning, to guard him against 
attempting sacrifices too great for human nature ! Thus a 
prolonged series of scruples, temptations, and discouragements 
conducted Loyola to the portals of the tomb. " He desired," 
says the Protestant author of the article in the British Review, 
from whom we have borrowed part of these details, " to die of 
hunger ; his ecstasies increased. The idea of suicide germinates, 
develops, and strengthens in his thoughts, and finally quite 
absorbs him. Thus," continues the same author, "that being 
would have had a miserable end, whose fame was destined to 
resound through the world, if the voice of a confessor had not 
rescued him from his sufferings, and made this voluntary death 
a case of conscience. When his debilitated body was, as it were, 
resuscitated, a revolution occurred within him. A sudden luci- 
dity succeeded the state of dejection, concentration, and weak- 
ness in which he had been plunged ; then he saw, in all its 
bearings, the plan of the boldest structure that man ever con- 
ceived." 

There is something striking in contemplating the founder of 
so famous an order, and a saint canonized by the Church, on 
the very brink of suicide ; but those who have severely cen- 
sured the fact, have forgotten the double nature of man, that 
duality against which so many fine minds have vainly striven,* 
and which is now more active than in the days of Plato. 
Read the lives of celebrated men, penetrate the secrets of those 
mysterious years, when the terrible struggle commenced in 
which the greater number found misery and death, and but few 
fortune and glory, and what do you see? long alternations of joy 

* A. Brierre de Boismont, De la Dualite humaine [Union Medicate). 
1851. 



382 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

and grief, of hope and disappointment, and, above all, that 
melancholy time when suicide, frequently conjured up, stands 
face to face with future renown, waiting only one final signal to 
plunge the victim into the gulf of forgetfulness. 

We may affirm, without fear of being mistaken, that there is 
no man of genius who has not experienced this temptation. It 
is because there exists in every illustrious person, as a modern 
writer has well said, a history and a biography ; his history 
exhibits his spiritual part — what he possesses of grandeur and 
power, a free nature, a life useful, and belonging to all; in his 
biography, he is a man like the rest of the world; he descends 
to infirmities, he requires repose. Amongst the most glorious 
names of history, the heroes and great representatives of the 
past, do we know one, who could stand the test of a secret 
chronicle, who did not sometimes tremble in the depths of his 
soul ; who did not fall in those moments, when human nature 
sinks, when the most robust and the strongest faint ? To write 
a biography only, is to deceive or to be deceived ; to mutilate 
the masterpiece with a sure blow, and reduce it to nothing.* 

The hallucinations of Loyola, then, were those of his age ; 
his sufferings gave them more intensity ; but, like those of many 
other celebrated persons, they did not influence his reason. 
What places this fact beyond doubt, is the evidence of that cool- 
ness of judgment in one of sueh ascetic habits, that extreme 
talent which exhibits itself in his plans and writings. When 
we see that sublime intellect seating himself, at forty years of 
age, on the benches of the Montague College in Paris, to learn 
Latin, we cannot fail to admire his strength of mind and 
unfailing moral energy. 

Is it possible to believe that the creation of that order which 
gave a counterpoise to Protestantism, of that secret militia 
which mingled in all classes, associated with all professions, at 
once religious and lay, and less occupied with devotional rites 
than with works really useful to Catholicism, should have ema- 
nated from a diseased brain ? Does it not, on the contrary, 
prove that it originated from the very attack of the Augustine 
monk ? History contains more than one example of this antag- 
onism of one power against another, of a will which devotes itself 

* See our paper on " Ennui," [Annal. Psych.) Oct. 1850. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 383 

to conquer another will. Amongst cases of this nature, none 
possess more interest than that of Joan of Arc. When evil 
appears on the earth under a new form, we may feel assured 
that good will react with still greater strength. It is then impos- 
sible for us to admit that the cell of a visionary soldier was the 
focus of this wonder. Such an explanation, although supported 
by science, appears to us contrary to the dignity of man. To 
transform philosophers, reformers, founders of religion, and crea- 
tive spirits into so many hallucinated madmen, is to offer the 
most cruel insult to human nature. All who work on with strong 
resolution, all inventors, all creative minds may be looked upon 
as centres of light; the brilliant results must give birth to the 
most varied phenomena ; but reason no less continues her opera- 
tions ; and what appears to depart from the normal type is 
but the gangue, the reflex, the sparkle of the work of produc- 
tion. 

It is not for us to examine Luther in a religious point of view ; 
that task has been gloriously performed by others. But we 
cannot but recognize in him one of the most vigorous natures 
that ever existed. What force of will, what power of argument, 
how closely are all parts of his work united ! With what per- 
severance he pursues the plan he has traced out ! How he 
repulses the attacks of his enemies ! 

Always in the breach, he dies after having seen the doctrine 
of free discussion triumphant.. And yet, the father of Reform, 
he whose name is still pronounced with veneration by thousands, 
must be ruthlessly ranked amongst madmen, since he had 
numerous interviews with the devil. It is in vain that the 
preacher Claude denies it — in vain that a modern author pre- 
tends that the devil is subtlety or the evil will, pride, or indi- 
viduality ; the facts are authentic, and Luther shall bear witness 
for himself. 

Conference with the Devil in 1521. — "It once happened,'' 
said he, "that I suddenly awoke at midnight, and Satan com- 
menced disputing with me." The conference turned entirely 
on the mass, which the devil reproached him with having only 
said for himself alone. It is but a reproduction of the argu- 
ments of Luther against that sacrament, and there is no doubt 
but that the Reformer, whose days and nights were employed 
in the accomplishment of his work, saw on this occasion his 



384 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

thoughts imaged ; like all, who, being strongly preoccupied with 
a subject, perceive it distinctly before them and take it for 
reality, until the exclusive tension of mind ceases and they re- 
enter the actual world. The replies of Luther to the devil are 
generally feeble ; and it appears to M. Audin, impossible that 
Luther could have been awake when the devil appeared to him. 

It is a curious historical fact, that it was before this vision 
that the sacrifice of the mass fell; and that the Protestants, in 
ridicule of the ceremony, have since referred our priests to the 
testimony of Satan. 

The Sacramentarians, like Parous, bring forward this appari- 
tion to convince the Lutherans and Calvinists, that, if the devil 
showed himself to the Reformer in order to reveal to him the 
idolatry concealed in the celebration of the mass, an angel also 
appeared to Zuingle, to teach him the real sense of the words 
used in the Lord's Supper. Luther ridiculed this vision, to the 
great scandal of the Zuinglians, who did not deny their faith in 
his colloquy with Satan. 

" Do you know," inquired Luther, " why the Sacramentarians, 
Zuingle, Bucer, and (Ecolampadius, have never understood the 
sacred writings ? Because they have not had the devil for an 
adversary ; for we are but poor theologians if we have not the 
devil tied round our necks." 

A writer, M. Claude, who often had the honor to dispute with 
Bossuet, sees nothing in this conference but a parable, a kind of 
myth imagined by Luther ; who was fed, he says, on the writings 
of the monks, in which the tempter so often appears in a mate- 
rial form. Satan, instead of being a reality, would only per- 
sonify a philosophic abstraction representing the clamor of evil 
passions. 

Luther himself has given a denial to Claude : for, in his 
treatise on Missti Privatd, in which the vision is described, after 
having exalted the power of Satan, who will never allow long 
conferences, he says: "This explains, why men are sometimes 
found dead in their beds ; they are strangled by Satan. Emser, 
(Ecolampadius, and others, who fell into the clutches of the evil 
spirit, died as suddenly." Hospinian believes that Emser actu- 
ally died the diabolic death stated by Luther ; but he cannot 
give up (Ecolampadius to the fiend, "an evangelist of so holy 
and pure a life, who, according to Beze, after a gentle death 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 385 

■went to rejoin his brother, Zuingle, the pastor of Eisendeln, 
who said that Luther was not only possessed by one bad 
spirit, but, like a stronghold, was occupied by a whole legion of 
devils."* 

Why should we speak of the bag of nuts removed by the 
devil, his transformation into a fly, how he hung on the neck of 
the monk, the frequent visits he paid to him, when in bed, where 
he lay closer to the Reformer than even his Catherine? 

Certainly, viewing the matter in a scientific light, Luther is 
accused and convicted of hallucinations ; but was he insane ? 
We must answer in the negative. At the period of the Reform- 
ation, Satan had immense power; he figured in creeds, books, 
pictures, sculptures, conversations, vigils. All evil was attri- 
buted to him. He drew in his train an innumerable company 
of magicians and sorcerers. f He trafficked publicly in souls ; and 
reports were abroad, from one end of Europe to the other, of 
the removal and violent deaths of those who made compacts w T ith 
this terrible master. The ideas of Luther, exalted by continual 
controversy, by the danger of his position, and by the thunders 
of the Church, and unceasingly revolving in a religious circle, 
would naturally feel the influence of the demon, who seemed to 
pervade all things; to whom he attributed every obstacle which 

* Audin, Histoire de la vie, des ouvrages et des doctrines de Luther. 
Paris, 1842, p. 132 to 145. 

f M. Ozanam, Professor in the Sorbonne, in a very remarkable lecture, 
developed the idea that paganism was ,in full force when Christianity 
appeared. He remarked that if, towards the commencement of the fifth 
century, it ceased to exist as the religion of the State, the traces of the 
spirit with which it was animated were found in the Middle Ages, and 
even up to our own times. He sees the traces, and the persisting life, 
of paganism under Charles Martel, when the peasantry strove to replace 
the idols ; notes it in the teachings of a false philosophy ; in those, for 
example, of Scot-Erigene, who, in the tenth century, revived the ideas of 
Plotin, or something approaching to them; in the grotesque and immoral 
feasts of the Middle Ages ; in the heresies of the Albigenses ; in the 
occult sciences, whose origin, he says, as well as the manner, frequently 
terrible, of their suppression, must not be traced to the darkness of the 
Middle Ages, but to the old superstitions of pagan antiquity. If in the 
Middle Ages, sorcerers and magicians were burned alive, the cruelty must 
not be attributed to the Christian Church, but to the remains of paganism, 
which still burrowed in the heart of society. 

25 



386 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

he encountered, and whom, in common with all men of his time, 
he believed to interfere in every human event. 

Hallucinations were, so to speak, in the whole social commu- 
nity, not in individuals. This character of generality, observ- 
able in the follies of the Middle Ages, resulted, doubtless, from 
the fact that men were absorbed in them, whilst free discussion 
would, of necessity, cause individuality to triumph. Thus, in 
our days, when personality has reached its highest point, general 
follies have almost entirely disappeared, and have been replaced 
by alienations peculiar to each person. 

This passage was written before the revolutions which suc- 
ceeded the 24th of February, 1848. The notice that we pub- 
lished ini' Union Medicate (20th July, 1848), on the Influence 
des derniers Uvenements, proves that social derangements are 
not so far removed from our midst as we had imagined ; and that 
the circles of passion in which we move, are, with some modifi- 
cations, always derived from the same source.* 

Thus, admitting the fact of Luther's hallucinations, we would 
say that they had no power over his reason ; that they were 
produced by the superstitious beliefs of the time, and by his 
tension of mind, and that they should only be looked upon as 
the pictured reflex of his thoughts. 

To the cases already cited, we feel we should certainly add 
that of the heroine to whom France owes the expulsion of the 
foreigner. 

"There is no episode in our annals," says M. Buchon, "which 
excites so much admiration and interest as the brief history of 
the arrival of Joan of Arc in the French camp, her exploits, her 
virtue, and her execution. So extraordinary an event has given 
rise to the most varied conjectures. Some, partaking of the 
ideas of the times, have thought her to be really inspired with 
supernatural light; others have regarded her enthusiasm as the 
effect of highly- wrought feelings of patriotism and religion ; 
others, again, have made her the agent or the dupe of a vast 
and profound intrigue organized by the ministers of the court 
of Charles the Seventh.f 

* See also our Analysis of La Maladie Democratique, Annal. Medic. 
Psycho. 1850. 
f Buchon, Analyse raisonnee des Documents sur la Pucelle, p. 196 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 387 

Who, then, was the Maid of Orleans ? A young peasant, 
eighteen or nineteen years of age, tall and of a noble figure, a 
countenance mild, but proud, a character remarkable for its 
union of candor and strength, modesty and authority, and finally 
of a conduct which was the admiration of all who knew her. 
From the earliest stage of her warlike career, she became the 
perfect model of a Christian knight. Intrepid, indefatigable, 
sober, pious, modest; skilful in subduing horses, and versed in 
all parts of the science of arms, everything in her life points 
her out as a being highly inspired, and bears the stamp of 
divine authority.* At the early age of eighteen, her mission 
was fulfilled ; and nothing remained for her but the crown of 
martyrdom. 

Thus, on the one hand, irreproachable conduct, exemplary 
goodness, and sound reason ; but on the other, as was the case 
with many renowned personages, visions and revelations. We 
will first state the facts, and then proceed to their examination. 

At the age of twelve, her first apparition occurred as follows : 
Being in the field with her companions, she saw a young man 
beside her, who said : " Joan, run home, for your mother wants 
you." Joan flew to her mother, who declared she had not asked 
for her. The young girl was about to return to her friends, but 
suddenly a clear and brilliant cloud appeared, and from the 
midst of the cloud a voice, which said : " Joan, thou art born to 
pursue another career, and to do marvellous things ; for it is 
thou whom the King of heaven has chosen to re-establish the 
kingdom of France, and to be the aid and support of King 
Charles, despoiled of his empire. Clothed as a man, thou wilt 
take arms ; thou wilt be a chief in the army, and all will obey 
thy counsels." 

Day and night similar apparitions appeared to Joan ; she con- 
tinued for five years in this unquiet state. Finally, in a last 
vision, she received this answer : " The King of heaven com- 
mands and wills it ; in future, ask not how this can be ; for if 
such be the will of God in heaven, such it will be on earth. Go, 
then, to the neighboring place called Vancouleurs, which alone 

to 198, Paris, 1843. Friedreich, Algemeine Diagnostik der psychischen 
Krankeiten, p. 291, Wiirtzburg, 1832. 
* Charles Nodier. 



388 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

in all the champaign countries has preserved its allegiance to 
the King. He who commands there will conduct thee without 
difficulty whithersoever thou wouldst."* 

On being interrogated by her enemies, this ill-fated girl said 
that St. Catherine and St. Margaret appeared to her, at the 
age of thirteen, and taught her self-government. The first 
voice which she heard w T as that of St. Michael, whom she saw ; 
he was accompanied by angels ; all bore corporeal forms. She 
declared that she embraced the two saints, that they had a 
sweet odoK, and that she had touched them.f 

Hallucinations of nearly all the senses are here evident. Was 
this sufficient to make the heroic Joan of Arc a madwoman ? 
We protest against the idea. Read the interrogatories, so 
stamped with malevolence, craft, and hate, and you will be 
struck with the simple, ingenuous, and consistent replies of the 
maiden. She stood ever superior to her judges, baffling their 
perfidy by lier candor, their cowardice by her courage, their 
folly by her itrong intellect, their narrow bigotry by her exalted 
piety. _.,4/$- 

Her life, as this examination proves, was one of innocence and 
purity. . When the irregularities of the armed soldiery struck 
fear into her companions, she, trusting in her purity, led their 
flocks safely through dangerous places. 

She attained the age of thirteen, a period in which her vigor- 
ous nature might be expected to manifest the full development 
of all the physical functions, since her moral and intellectual 
faculties were prematurely developed. At this time, all the 
inhabitants of the country lived in constant dread of the English 
and JBurgundians ; all hearts were bowed down by the deepest 
dejection. The country seemed irrevocably lost. The young 
imagination of Joan was inflamed at the sight of the distresses 
of her country, of her hamlet, of her family. Adolescence, 
which should now have succeeded childhood, caused an extra- 
ordinary agitation in her blood and her brain. In this kind of 
crisis, she turned her eyes towards the windows of the church, 
on which the brilliant rays of the sun were reflected. She was 

*Buchon, op. cit. Pantheon litteraire, Lettre du Sieur Perceval de 
Boulourmack, 521 et 522. 

f Interrogatoire du 17 Mars, p. 492. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 389 

dazzled, and remained plunged in a kind of ecstasy. Then it 
was, continues M. Buchon, whose account we borrow, that those 
visions commenced which related to her mission. 

This great moment of hallucination passed, Joan returned to 
herself, and doubted the reality of what she had seen. For 
several weeks her blood, become cooler, did not convey to her 
brain either warlike fervor, marvellous visions, or prophetic 
inspirations ; but at the close of every few weeks, when the 
symptoms of a great constitutional revolution were manifested, 
which appear never to have been developed, the same hallucina- 
tions were reproduced to her dazzled eyes; St. Michael became 
visible, and she fell into ecstatic reveries in her mystic conversa- 
tions with him, with the angel Gabriel, St. Catherine, and St. 
Margaret, who all wore rich and precious crowns. It was in 
vain that she opposed reason to these visions ; each recurrence 
of the same phenomena gave them more power ; and as the 
voices which appealed to her pure and noble heart murmured 
only thoughts of honor and devotedness, she at length no longer 
mistrusted them, but hailed them with more eagerness than she 
had at first dreaded them. She had already lived for seven 
years in this intimate communion with the most exalted thoughts, 
which found an echo in herself. Her eighteenth year was at- 
tained, in all the vigor of her fine organization. She was ready 
to complete her sacrifice. She presented herself to the Governor 
of Vancouleurs, who, touched with so much courage and perse- 
verance, yielded at length to her prayers, and sent her armed 
to Chinon.* 

This appreciation of the conduct of Joan of Arc by a man of 
incontestable merit, appeared to us so conformable with scientific 
views, that we thought it right to give the entire passage. But 
now the objections present themselves which we have elsewhere 
made. If irregularity in a phenomenon important to woman 
must be looked on as the cause of the hallucinations of Joan, 
how is it that we do not find any analogy in those which occur 
in our day under similar circumstances ? If the monthly period 
exercises an action on the brain, it results in disorders more or 
less decided, of feeling, motion, or intellect, in symptoms of in- 

* Buchon, Analyse raisonee des documents sur la Pucelle, p. 196-198. 



390 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

sanity, in short, in a state of suffering.* Nothing of this cha- 
racter occurred with Joan ; her health was sound, her judgment 
clear ; for these hallucinations, reflections of the belief of the 
times, were the consequences of the idea that her mission was 
of divine origin. 

The violent manner in which our doctrine of the coexistence 
of hallucinations with reason has been attacked, makes it but 
fair on our part to quote such authors as view the matter in the 
same light with ourselves. 

We have never professed to think that persons having hallu- 
cinations were in a usual state. We have sought for an explana- 
tion of these phenomenon, formerly so frequent, and even still 
of occasional occurrence, in enthusiasm, the offspring of strong 
belief, and favored by those peculiar circumstances in the midst 
of which they were produced. 

We shall see that this explanation, which agrees with that of 
a distinguished writer, M. Ch. Louandre, is as ingenious, much 
more probable, and bears a philosophic and historic weight very 
much differing from that which imputes them to diseases of the 
organs. 

Let us return to the case, so thrilling in interest, of the 
heroic Joan of Arc, of which M. Quicherat has published im- 
portant documents, and on which M. Michelet has delivered a 
remarkable verdict. 

In the Middle Ages, it was a Christian belief, in other words, 
a traditional dogma, that God honored France with special pro- 
tection, and that he had selected it for his kingdom on earth. 
This creed appears startlingly prominent in the interpretation 
of historic facts, and is reduced into many marvellous legends. 
God sends the oil for the coronation, to the cathedral at Rheims, 
by the dove, which conveys celestial messages. But whatever 
may be the fact of the St. Ampoule, f there is no doubt that 
this legend exercised a powerful influence on the destinies of 
French royalty, and, through that source, on the destinies of 
the country. The coronation of our kings is not a vain cere- 

* A. Brierre de Boismont, Recherches bibliographiques et cliniques sur 
la menstruation. Annal. Med-psychol. Oct. 1851. 

f The phial containing the sacred oil used at the coronation of the 
kings of France. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 391 

mony. It is a mystic solemnity in which God confers especial 
grace, the spirit of justice and the gift of miracles. Here then 
is a source which, ever since its origin, has presented an inex- 
haustible number of marvellous facts in the ages of faith. 

Without doubt, the belief in divine interposition and tradi- 
tions, everywhere spread abroad, had reached Joan, and, when 
we look back into former times, we can comprehend how, in 
questioning her courage and her faith, in listening to those 
mysterious voices which spoke to her during her ecstasy, she 
recognized in herself the angel announced for the salvation of 
France. 

In order to overcome all obstacles, it sufficed this noble 
girl to have a glimpse of her sacred mission ; it sufficed her that 
she had placed her foot on that mystic ladder which leads, by 
visions, to the threshold of eternity. 

Joan of Arc is of the same family with Hildegarde and Saint 
Catherine of Sienna. Like these two saints, she obeyed that 
superior faculty of enthusiasm, illuminism, and ecstasy which, 
beyond the bounds of all analysis, approaches the most pro- 
found mysteries of being, but which is no less an actual fact, 
permanent in history, and inherent in human nature. 

In this internal disturbance of ecstasy, the mind, powerfully 
over-excited, demands of imagination the realization of the phan- 
toms of its dreams; and imagination, despite of the resistance of 
reason, endues them with form and substance. The mind embraces 
new horizons ; the external world is no longer seen under ordi- 
nary circumstances ; it no longer succumbs to probability, and 
the mirage rises on all sides with features and authority so 
grand that mystics have established the superiority of the in- 
ternal over the external sense. " This internal sight, this ubiqui- 
tous vision," as Hugues said to Saint Victor, " sees God and all 
that is in God ; when enlightened by faith, the appearance of 
intangibility is attained, and, through faith, that is seen which 
would escape the senses in the world of matter. 

Hallucinations are not confined to individuals; they exist also 
in communities ; visions become contagious. 

Besides, Joan and her contemporaries would discover in Christ- 
ian tradition the logic of these hallucinations. Angels appeared 
to Abraham, Moses, and Joshua. The ecclesiastical writers of 
the early ages said, that when two nations went to war, the 



392 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

celestial spirits, stationed on the limits of the two kingdoms, also 
waged a terrible warfare, which explains the propensity of men, 
in the Middle Ages, to see armies engaging in battle in the 
clouds. The spectators, who witnessed the execution of the 
heroic Joan of Arc related that they saw the sacred name of 
Jesus, the last which she pronounced, written in the flames. 

The real explanation of the glorious destiny of Joan of Arc, 
may be called patriotism and military genius, exalted by faith 
to the highest limits of inspiration. This is all that modern 
reason can admit. 

M. Michelet, who has dived deeply into the belief of the 
Middle Ages, recognizes religious inspiration as doing homage 
to the sentiments which form heroes and martyrs, namely, a 
sincere faith and strong patriotism; he shows, towering above 
human acts, the mysterious influence of Providence on great 
events, and the divine ray which proceeds from the Infinite on 
that elected soul, in order to arouse in it the silent poetry of 
sentiment.* 

The learned Dr. Ideler, physician to a lunatic hospital in 
Berlin, after having quoted many passages of my work, thus 
expresses himself: " The importance of these considerations, 
which may serve as a criterion by which to distinguish real 
insanity from the separate phenomena of genius and moral 
exaltation, and which should guide us through our researches, 
is still more evident in the application which the French physi- 
cian makes of the higher principles exhibited by celebrated 
personages. I borrow the beautiful picture which he draws 
of the Maid of Orleans ,"f 

If facts were not already too numerous, we would repeat here 
the account of St. Ge'nevieve, to whose vision may be attributed 
the salvation of Paris. We should read the account of that 
saint, in the interesting paper by M. Thierry on Attila, in order 
to entertain no doubt of the exalted state of her mind.J 

The more we multiply cases drawn from history, the more we 
are forced to recognize the fact that celebrated men, above all 

* M. Ch. Louandre, Revue des Deux Mondes, le Juillet, p. 106. 
f K.W. Ideler, Versuch einer Theorie des religib'sen Wahnsinnes, p. 30, 
1 vol. 8vo. Halle, 1848. 

% Attila, Revue des Deux Mondes, Mars, 1852. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A KELIGIOUS POINT OP VIEW. 393 

those who have striven to ameliorate the condition of their kind, 
would find a niche in the pandemonium of lunacy, if morbid hal- 
lucination alone would justify their admission. 

Every one has heard of the sect of Friends, or Quakers ; 
their probity has become proverbial ; but with existing medical 
doctrines, George Fox, the founder of the Society, would be but 
a lunatic. I do not know how that great man has escaped 
modern iconoclasts, since he possessed all the necessary qualities 
to be crushed by them. 

In order to give himself up to a work of regeneration, George 
Fox, early in life, abandoned his family, and during a long series 
of years dressed in skin from head to foot. Now concealed in 
his chamber, now hidden in the cleft of a large tree, fasting, 
praying, and meditating on the Holy Scriptures, he was assailed 
by a variety of temptations and discouragements. About this 
period, he had many revelations which struck him with astonish- 
ment \ it was disclosed to him that all Christians, whether Pro- 
testants or Papists, were believers and sons of G-od. Alarmed 
and distressed at finding no support on any side, he was finally 
consoled by a voice which said to him : "There is one who can 
console and aid you, even Christ himself." As was the case 
with Sti Francis, of Assise, it was during a vision that he re- 
ceived the consecration of the spirit. For fourteen days, he 
remained in a kind of lethargy, and whilst his body lay to all 
appearance dead, his mind plunged into eternity, and he wit- 
nessed what no language could describe. "I saw," said he, 
"the greatness, the infinity, and the love of God." One Sunday, 
in 1649, he felt himself drawn to enter Nottingham Cathedral 
in order to bear witness. It is, therefore, undeniable that the 
founder of the Society of Quakers had visions and revelations. 
These psychological phenomena were also manifested in the first 
disciples who responded, to his voice. Like him, all were deeply 
convinced of their infallibility, all looked on themselves as saints 
delivered from all sin, and endowed with the gift of prophecy ; 
but all were likewise endowed with a kind of heroism, a con- 
tempt of danger, and a passion for plainness.* 

Let us now return to those four characters drawn from differ- 

* Les Quakers, George Fox et les premier Prophetes, Revue des Deux 
Mondes, 2 vol., 1850, p. 94, et se%., par M. J. Milsand. 



394 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ent countries, who increase in grandeur in proportion as we view 
them from a distance, and towards whom posterity is beginning 
to show justice. Will they emerge with less brilliancy and 
purity for being submitted to the test of human science ? The 
account already given answers this question ; what we are about 
to add will leave no doubt on the subject. A principal and 
decisive fact is, that each of these personages is the representa- 
tive, the personification of one of those ideas which exert so 
great an influence in the world. Their mission is providential ; 
their acts are impelled by a superior power ; they are forced to 
do as they do. The kingdom of France is nearly destroyed ; 
scarcely a single town remains to the Dauphin ; at this point 
(this is a main fact in our history), a simple, innocent, and vir- 
tuous young girl comes forth from the fields, accomplishes that 
which the greatest warriors have failed in doing, and the king of 
France receives the crown from her hands. 

The religious curb imposed for several ages on the human 
mind has become too weighty ; serious mistakes have made it 
still more difficult to be borne ; low groanings, precursors of the 
tempest, are heard muttering around ; human reason reclaims 
her rights; the cohorts are ready; they wait but a leader; at 
length he crosses the threshold of his cloister, and gives to the 
world the right of investigation. But the violence of his attacks, 
the ruin which he deprecates, and the destruction with which 
he threatens the Catholic Church, produces a reaction ; an 
obscure soldier rises from the midst of the camp, who, with an 
eagle glance, scans the plan of the Reformer, seizes its vulnerable 
parts, arranges his own, and reconstructs the tottering edifice 
with such success, that all the efforts of Protestantism fall shat- 
tered at its feet. 

Without attaining the level of those three illustrious men, the 
founder of Quakerism supplied a need of his time. He came, 
as M. J. Milsand remarks, at a period when old customs were 
about to yield. An infinitude of unsatisfied wants were crowded 
together in his nature, whence a future was to be formed ; an 
infinitude of instincts were developed, but were not yet defined 
or classed. He experienced to the highest degree an invincible 
repugnance to the worldly vanity and morose dogmatism of the 
bigots who surrounded him. The language of the doctors had 
incensed him, and he felt an irresistible desire to reply to them. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 395 

This feeling he took for a revelation. He did as others then 
did. 

In fact, in 1648, these convictions, instead of being ascribed 
to the evidence of truth, and to indisputable principles, as was 
the case in later times, were attributed to a revelation. " Re- 
ligion was the fashion of the day," said one of the most religious 
writers (Daniel Neal, the historian of the Puritans). Officers 
preached, women mounted the pulpit, children received for their 
Christian names, "Praise God," or "Serve the Lord." Every 
one interpreted for himself the will of the Most High, as if he 
alone held the register of the divine law. Fox, far from being 
an anomaly, was a popular prophet, or rather, an exaggeration 
of his time ; his course was guided by the age, and ignorance 
had raised his fixed ideas to exaltation, causing him to mistake 
his desires for actual facts. 

At the sight of such works, and such great results, obtained 
by such superior minds, who will persist in comparing their hal- 
lucinations with those of the individuals who come under our 
daily notice ? 

We have already said that pure hallucinations, without the 
complication of any one of the forms of insanity, appear to us 
to be as rare as real monomania. For our part, we have never 
met with any one suffering from hallucination, whose error was 
so circumscribed that, in giving way to their idea, we have found 
them rational on all other points. All whom we have known, 
and all of whom we have read in the works of modern authors, 
have given tokens denoting a confusion in their ideas, howso- 
ever they might endeavor to conceal the state of their minds 
from others. Alternately unsteady, strange, eccentric, gloomy, 
misanthropical, apathetic, frivolous, incapable of carrying out 
the least project, holding extraordinary conversations, or com- 
mitting inexplicable actions, they have vainly endeavored, by 
acts and words really rational, to escape the watchful eye of 
the investigator. The wound was always perceived, like that 
indelible stain of blood which the experienced eye can detect 
notwithstanding all attempts to obliterate it. Some very rare 
instances may be cited of individuals who, with a false idea, 
have, nevertheless, fulfilled very important functions. We do 
not dispute it ; but those in this state have been more or less 
conscious of their infirmity ; they watched themselves, redoubled 



396 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

their precautions, and did nothing to betray the train of their 
idea. Their general conduct resembled that of others ; and they 
rather drew along the idea than allowed themselves to be en- 
slaved by it. Let us also observe that these hallucinated persons 
were not the expression of any need, the representatives of any 
idea, or the promoters of any object useful to their kind. The 
greater number, wrapped up in themselves, believed they were 
called on to reform mankind, by means either ridiculous or dis- 
proportioned to the end. It was in vain that they developed 
their projects with address ; they only succeeded in exhibiting 
their own weakness ; and howsoever artfully they may have 
draped themselves, pride, vanity, and folly were seen through 
the rents in the mantle. In the very presence of these differ- 
ences, how can any one establish a parallel between the power- 
ful, creative, and animated organizations of the former, and the 
weak, sickly natures of the latter? We do not deny that both 
these classes of persons were hallucinated ; but the hallucina- 
tions of the former, consequent on the times, were compatible 
with reason, whilst those of the latter were always in a greater 
or less degree combined with insanity. 

If the observations that we have made be conclusive, and the 
reasonings that we have deduced therefrom be just, then the 
opinion ought to be rejected, which has made of Socrates, Plato, 
Numa, Pythagoras,* Pascal, and many other illustrious person- 
ages, so many hallucinated madmen. These conclusions are so 
natural that a learned physician and philosopher, whose charac- 
ter and talents have won for him universal esteem, after having 
converted all these celebrated persons into visionaries, who would 
now be confined, adds the following words, which will excite 
much criticism: "In order to act on the multitude, to seize 
on the people, to overturn or change beliefs, and to imprint a 
furrow on the face of nature that ages will fail to efface, it is 
necessary to think, speak, be deceived and grow frenzied with 
the masses ; to believe with them, and beyond them ; to be their 
messenger and their prophet, in order that they may think you 
the prophet of God, and yield a belief that you possess his 

* Consult a very curious work, entitled Apologie pour les grands hommes 
soupgonnes de Magie, par M. Naude, Parisien, Amsterdam, 1722, 1 vol. 
I2mo. p. 136. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 397 

power." And he terminates the passage thus : " They were not 
madmen, but they were hallucinists; such as neither do nor can 
exist again; hallucinists whose visions were visions of reason."* 
The objections which we have offered in the name of science 
and literature, so unhappily tarnished by the stigma of madness, 
had already fallen under the notice of others than ourselves ; it 
had been said, the visionaries of old must not be classed with 
madmen; they were deceived, but it was with the ideas of their 
age; and it would be absurd to tax all the generations which 
have preceded us, with madness. It was, if you will, an error 
of the human mind, but not a disease. 

Leuret, in his Fragmens Psyeliologiques sur la folie, a work 
equally interesting, and well written, but whose doctrines cannot 
be embraced by those holding religious convictions, has endea- 
vored to refute these objections. "We must here draw a dis- 
tinction," he says, "between those who had visions and those 
who had faith in them. For the latter, they were in error, and 
in error only, I readily admit it. As for those who had visions, 
they were deceived like the others, but they were also deranged, 
because they had within themselves an invincible cause of error; 
they experienced unusual phenomena, which made them distinct 
intelligences, exempt from ordinary rules ; or rather without 
rules, living in a world of fancy, out of which no reasoning could 
entice them. Amongst our ancestors, no doubt, the condition 
of the human mind powerfully concurred in the frequent pro- 
duction of visions ; but it does not cease to be a disease because 
it is dependent on a general cause ; and, as there is no essen- 
tial difference between the visionaries of our own day and those 
of former times, both should be placed in the ranks of lunatics." 
Without pausing on the difference of opinion between the two 
authors as to the psychological state of these individuals, whom 
the first looks on as such hallucinists as will no more be seen, 
whose sensorial errors were compatible with the most perfect 
exercise of reason ; and the second views in the light of insane 
persons resembling those of the present time ; whom the one 
proclaims to be messengers, the expression of the people ; and 
the other, on the contrary, regards as diseased persons, impos- 
ing their visions on the multitude ; we will reply that the hallu- 

* Amulette de Pascal, p. 145. 



398 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

cinations of those distant times were not a disease, but a belief, 
no doubt erroneous, like many others in physics, chemistry, 
astronomy, etc., which did not hinder men from properly fulfill- 
ing their duties. As to those superior minds, to whom the impu- 
tation of insanity has been more particularly addressed, the 
condition in which they were, being that of the four personages 
of whom we have spoken, we will not reproduce the arguments 
on which we have laid stress, to prove that they were not insane. 

In presence of this doctrine, so humiliating and so distressing 
to humanity, have we not reason to ask, in the words of a late 
writer : " What, then, is that sorrowful side of the mind which 
delights in the denial of immemorial possessions, which reduces 
to nothing the most sacred legitimacies, which causes what was 
adored to be despised, which converts facts and changes counte- 
nances as if by enchantment ? Should the scholar reduce every- 
thing to his classifications ? Can he make no allowance for 
epochs and beliefs ? And in thus seeing him trample on all that 
we worshipped, have we not a right to say : Have you well under- 
stood those great undertakings that you have blackened, dis- 
paraged, and weakened; those great men whose littlenesses 
and weak points you have divulged ; whom you have brought into 
disrepute by falsehood, or ignorance of their motives ? Have 
you not been led into error by the microscope, through which 
you have examined them ? Every epoch has in itself the 
reason for its being, in its actions and its thoughts ; and those 
men, to whom you impute madness, are, perhaps, but the natural 
result of the times in which they lived !" 

A member of the Royal Academy of Medicine, Dr. Renaul- 
din, in a well-written treatise on Mohammed, viewed as a mad- 
man, thus expresses himself: — 

"No, he was no madman, who succeeded, by so many sacri- 
fices and self-denials, in producing such a revolution in the 
religious system and in the morals of an entire nation. He was 
no madman, who overthrew superstition and idolatry to sub- 
stitute the worship of one only God ; and who, by this means, 
extricated his country from the darkness of barbarism, made 
the Arab name so long feared and respected, and opened to his 
successors the road to so many glorious conquests. He was no 
madman, who endowed his country with a code of laws, of which 
they were before entirely devoid — a code, which, after twelve 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A KELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 399 

hundred years, is still recognized in the countries professing 
Islamism. 

" Doubtless, in the outset of his wonderful enterprise, he was 
not exempt from imprudence, audacity, and temerity, whose 
consequences, more than once, compromised the success of his 
mission; but, taught by experience and by his profound know- 
ledge of mankind, trusting in God and in his fortune, pursuing 
the work of his life through a thousand obstacles, and a thou- 
sand dangers, Mohammed never gave way; on the contrary, he 
exhibited a genius full of ingenuity, firmness, and courage — a 
genius, fertile in resources, superior to all reverses, and remark- 
able for its expansion, flexibility, and perseverance. 

"As to his visions, they may have been imaginary ; but, why 
should they not receive the same explanation as that we have 
given to those of the great philosophers of antiquity, and of 
men powerfully preoccupied with one idea in an epoch of pro- 
found convictions and mysterious faith, and placed in circum- 
stances which must react upon themselves?" 

To the four examples just given, we could add that of Socrates, 
the greatest man of antiquity. But if our arguments, which but 
feebly express our conviction, have found favor with our readers, 
they will themselves make the application to the Grecian philo- 
sopher, who, notwithstanding medical theories, will no less be 
an eternal honor to human reason, and the master of Plato. 
Common sense could never look on a man whose conduct was so 
wise, so pure, and in some sort so providential, as a madman. 
His familiar spirit was only a personification of self, the mate- 
rial form of which belonged to the age. His belief in dreams 
he held in common with all antiquity; as to the influence which 
he is reproached with exercising at a distance, on his pupils, we 
only see in it the admiration which his talents excited in them, 
their devotion to his person, and the' high reverence with which 
they viewed his mission. Besides, what matters it, if Socrates 
had hallucinations ? The truths which he taught did not result 
from them ; they existed no less before than after him. Finally, 
can we, as we have elsewhere remarked, employ this word in 
connection with pure conceptions, and ideas properly expressed? 

Thus, in our opinion, the celebrated men whom we have 
named, and many others, may have had hallucinations, without 
their designs, acts, or conduct being in any degree influenced 



400 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

by them, or without the existence of any plausible pretext for 
accusing them of insanity, in which respect they differ enorm- 
ously from the hallucinated of our day ; whose conversations, 
actions, and gestures have always a stamp of madness ; who are 
the expression of no need, fulfil no mission, and, in a word, ap- 
pear quite useless to their fellow- creatures. 

This appears to be the proper place for us to examine halluci- 
nations in a religious point of view; for it is contrary to reason, 
and degrading to human nature, to pretend that much of what 
has been achieved of great, good, and sublime in philosophy and 
morality, has been the work of madmen. To maintain that the 
prophets, apostles, and saints were hallucinated madmen, were 
to undermine the faith of thousands, and to blame even the 
Omnipotent Creator himself. Although the plan of this work 
and its limits does not permit of our -treating this question to 
the extent it merits, we nevertheless propose briefly to state 
our ideas on the subject. Were we living at a period when a 
profession of faith would be a profitable title to temporal pros- 
perity, we would abstain, but ours is an age of tolerance; per- 
haps, we may say, of indifference ; every one freely expresses 
his opinions ; we, therefore, will say that which we believe to be 
the truth. 

There is no nation without a religion. Ancient or modern, 
great or little, powerful or weak, all have leaned on that found- 
ation.* 

Their duration has been in proportion to the depth of convic- 
tion. But if religion be intimately connected with the history 
of a people, its influence must above all depend on the purity 
of its origin and the sanctity of its mission ; this twofold cha- 
racter, all must admit the Christian religion to possess. 

Let us recollect the state of the world on the advent of Jesus 
Christ. Paganism was universal. Mankind, penned up like 
wild flocks, existed only by the will of their masters. Families 
were not constituted; the distinctive character of ancient society 
was the multiplicity of gods, slavery, and the little value placed 
on women and children. In proclaiming equality, the founder 

* If England, America, and Russia have accomplished such great things, 
if they have been called to such exalted destinies, they owe it to their re- 
spect for religion. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 401 

of Christianity destroyed this threefold error.* At that voice 
man burst his chains, awoke from his long torpor, and hailed 
the dawn of his resurrection. When we contemplate the feeble 
means by which this religion was established, what adversaries 
it had to encounter, what obstacles to surmount, and in how few 
years it triumphed, no one can deny its divine origin, which is 
sufficiently testified by Scripture. Observe what a wonderful 
multitude of superior intellects have, since the earliest times, 
brought to its shrine the weight of their talents; number all those 
great minds which, during so many ages, have ranged themselves 
under its banner ; look at what is passing in our day, and say 
if a religion which has reckoned, and still reckons, in its ranks 
so many great men, whose only enemy has been pride, whose 
steps are all strewn with mercies, whose faults have been those 
of man, never of its doctrines, ought to be regarded as the work 
of hallucinated madmen. 

We are not the first who, persuaded of the divine origin of 
Christianity, have pointed out the line which separates the 
apparitions of the Scriptures from those of profane history. 
The English faculty, who have chiefly entered on the subject, 
have already put forth a similar opinion. Thus Arnold writes : 
" A rational Christian admits of no inspiration but that exhibited 
in Christ and his apostles. As to the gift of prophecy in 
paganism and amongst modern Christians, it is only claimed by 
madmen, dupes, and impostors. The motives of those deceivers 
could be traced to private views of ambition or fame and interest, 
or zeal for the public good." 

"It has been asked," says Hibbert, "if all the authenticated 
facts of apparitions seen and voices heard should be looked upon 
as pathological cases. A distinction must be made in those that 
apply to Holy Writ. It would in fact be very unseemly to com- 
ment on the manner in which God, to answer certain purposes, 
has communicated directly with man ; but this distinction once 
established, it is necessary to remark that no facts of the kind 
are proved to have occurred since the apostolic times ; we, 
therefore, believe that all cases of like character, since that 

* Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en Europe, t. i. 1842. Guizot. Essai 
sur l'histoire de France, 5th edit. Collection Charpentier, 1841. 
26 



402 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

period, belong more to medicine than to theology."* It must 
be remembered that both Arnold and Hibbert are Protestants. 

Abercrombie says, in his work on the Intellectual Faculties, 
that, howsoever humiliating it may be to the pride of man, it is 
no less true that the highest efforts of his genius have only re- 
sulted in comprehending some insignificant parts of the plan of 
creation, and the admirable order which pervades the whole. If 
he attempts to dive deeper into the causes of this order, he finds 
that the power of the Creator extends beyond the limits of his 
mind, and that infinity is still before him. Notwithstanding all 
his efforts, he cannot step over the threshold ; and, if he be per- 
mitted to reach it, he can only contemplate the boundless horizon, 
which meets his bewildered sight, and bow in humble adoration 
before unmeasured wisdom and incomprehensible power, f 

It has been thought strange that a Christian rationalist, some- 
thing of a philosopher, should have appealed to the authority of 
Protestant authors. Our reply is simple ; if we believe in the 
excellency of the Catholic religion, if we firmly believe that our 
country will only be wise and happy in proportion as that reli- 
gion is respected, we make no sectional distinctions, because 
God has reserved to himself alone the judgment of the con- 
science ; and we find it impossible to believe that he will be 
inexorable to men truly religious, of whatsoever sect they 
may be. 

There are writers, who, in view of the events that have passed 
before our eyes, and the more terrible ones for which they have 
prepared the way, should have been made more just towards 
religion, but who have indulged in great outcries against the 
distinction we have made in favor of the apparitions of the Bible. 
But, instead of reproaching us for the weakness of bowing with 
too much respect before the canonical narrations, they have 

* Hibbert, op. cit. A very well-written estimate will be found in a 
work by the Abbe Lenglet-Dufresnoy (viewed religiously), of apparitions 
and visions which have occurred since the apostolic age, particularly in 
the Middle Ages. Traite" Historique et Dogmatique sur les Apparitions, 
les Visions et les Revelations particulieres, 2 vols, in 12. Avignon et Paris, 
1751, vol. i. p. 97. 

f Abercrombie, op. cit. ; John Cheyne's Essays on Partial Derange- 
ment of the Mind in supposed connection with Religion, 1 vol. Dublin, 
1843. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 403 

attacked us as an eclectic, who adopted some and rejected 
others. In acting thus, we did not pretend to more orthodoxy 
than the Fathers of the Church, and those learned theologians, 
who, like ourselves, were rationalists in regard to the hallucina- 
tions of several holy personages ; which assertion will be proved 
by the following quotations. 

Saint Bonaventura says decidedly, that certain persons who 
imagine they see Jesus Christ, or the Virgin, and from their 
mouths receive consolation, are exposed to errors, the publica- 
tion of which would be in itself blasphemous.* The famous Dr. 
Gerson has written a work entirely in the same spirit. Besides, 
the Church, according to Cardinal Lambertini, grants very little 
authority to particular visions. Some she tolerates, but rejects 
the mass. She shows no respect to them in acts of canonization, 
unless they are accompanied by sublime virtues. Even when 
visions are recognized by the Holy See, they do not constitute 
an object of general faith. Any opinion whatever, even the 
least favorable to miracles of all kinds, maybe entertained as to 
their causes, without exceeding, on that account, the bounds 
of orthodoxy. f 

Thus, if we have been at one period believing, and at others 
skeptical, we have only imitated the great doctors of orthodoxy. 
We must not, however, lose sight of the fact, that the visions of 
the prophets have signs quite distinct from these particular hal- 
lucinations ; they present a train of consecutive revelations, 
carried on through many centuries, with features perfectly iden- 
tical, all announcing the regeneration of the world, and the 
birth of a Saviour ; in a word, a complete system. 

One more remark on this subject. It never occurred to us to 
make ourselves a defender of the Catholic religion ; we have 
neither learning nor presumption enough to undertake such a 
task. We merely desired to protest against those principles 
which would overthrow the Bible, the gospels, dogmas, and 
revelation ; in short, that religion which M. Emile Laisset, in 
his remarkable article, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, on the 
Introduction Philosophique du Christianism, by Monseigneur, 

* De Profectu, relig. lib. 7, e. 8. 

f De Canonis, \ 3, lib. 3, c. 52 ; M. Michea, Du Delire des Sensations, 
p. 27. 



404 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

the Archbishop of Paris, proclaimed the latest religion of man- 
kind. The Church does not need our co-operation. Her social 
constitution, which all the efforts of the encyclopedists, led by 
Voltaire, and seconded by a powerful and frenzied aristocracy, 
could not destroy ; which the storms of '93 could not drown in 
its torrents of blood, and which now numbers charitable associa- 
tions composed of many thousands of men ; such an organization 
is strong enough to defend itself. 

Ecclesiastic authors have rejected the organic medical doc- 
trine of hallucinations. The Abbe Bergier, desirous of recon- 
ciling hallucinations with reason, and of establishing certain 
among them considered as such, to be really miraculous, writes 
thus, in his able Dictionnaire de Theologie : " The brain of 
Moses may have been affected in a manner to make him believe 
that he saw, heard, and performed all that he relates. The 
family of Tobias, in like manner, may have thought that an an- 
gel appeared and spoke to them, and did such things as they 
saw and experienced. The organs of Saul may have been en- 
lightened as much as if Samuel had indeed risen from the tomb. 
There is no ground to suspect the sincerity of those who have 
related these facts." No one, now, doubts the truth of religious 
hallucinations ; the only difference lies in the mode of explain- 
ing them. Some attribute them to a diseased state of the 
brain, others to education, prejudice, and many other causes. 
Others, again, and ourselves amongst the number believe, that 
those mentioned in the Scriptures must be referred to divine in- 
terference ; that some may be explained by the arguments which 
we have used in speaking of the hallucinations of Joan of Arc 
and Luther ; and furthermore, that others may be attributed to 
an abnormal disposition. One remark, in conclusion : The doc- 
tors of the Church, Saint Bonaventura, Gerson, and Cardinal 
Lambertini allow, that pious but unenlightened persons, may be 
duped by their illusions. Saint Augustin has also asserted that 
visions and apparitions often arise from a diseased imagination. 
Lastly, certain books, very improperly cited as authorities, have 
never been placed in the list of canonized works ; amongst oth- 
ers, The Golden Legend. 

Kecapitulation. — The hallucinations of many celebrated 
personages should be considered in relation to soundness of 
reason. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 405 

In making the conduct to depend on a state of health or dis- 
ease, historic facts are brought beneath the empire of physio- 
logical laws, which is quite contrary to the philosophy of history. 

A celebrated man, living in his age, is never the ruler of an 
epoch — he is but its incarnation ; and he almost invariably falls, 
if he desires to substitute his own will for that of others, or to 
turn the course of popular ideas to his own profit. 

To pretend that the great actions often performed are those 
of monomaniacs, because the realization of a thought is irresisti- 
bly pursued and carried out, is to undervalue genius and the 
sublime transports of the heart. The absolute doctrine of the 
influence of the organs on moral actions is contradicted by daily 
observation, which shows mind to rise superior to bodily decay. 

A sickly condition may influence temperament, humor, cha- 
racter, but has no action on the phenomena of consciousness. 

Sensorial impressions appear, on reaching the brain, to be 
deprived of their sensible sign. Some persons, however, preserve 
the faculty of reproducing sensations in a lifelike form. Certain 
normal and abnormal states have similar results. 

The mode of producing hallucination differs in the child, the 
dreamer, the poet, the thinker, the religious man ; he who recog- 
nizes its deceptive character ; he who does not allow it to influ- 
ence his actions ; the man who yields to it from the influence of 
his age, and the deranged man. 

In the theory of hallucinations, it should not be forgotten 
that the nervous and sanguine systems should be taken into 
consideration, although they are only secondary causes, and 
their action unknown. Hallucinations cannot be so well under- 
stood as when the nature of the thought is studied; they may 
be classed in two sections — spiritual and sensual. 

Ideas, which originate in the senses, are the first and most 
numerous, which does not at all imply their pre-existence. 
Having reached the brain, their images, their sensible signs may 
be instantly reflected, or reproduced long afterwards, or serve to 
form new combinations. Attention, comparison, imagination, 
memory, and association, have the greatest influence on these 
divers operations. 

There are few men who do not frequently embody the 
thoughts which please them, and, for a few moments, consider 



406 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

them as realities ; but the least effort of attention suffices to 
dispel these chimeras. 

As association plays a prominent part in the production of 
hallucinations, it demands special attention. 

The division of ideas into spiritual and sensual is important 
in our theory, because we believe the second alone form the 
material for hallucinations, and that, if the first appear to 
participate in them, it is only by the abuse of abstraction, or 
an imperfection in our nature, which gives material forms to 
spiritual things. Independence of mind is manifested beneath 
the false sensations. Sensation reaches the brain imperceptibly, 
but attention causes it to reappear, visible in proportion to its 
strength, so that, although at first confused, by degrees clearer, 
it ends by developing itself palpably to the sight. The repetition 
of this may lead the most sensible men into error. According 
to Crichton, the continuance of the operations of the mind in 
hallucinations and monomania proves that all portions of the 
brain are not the seat of this phenomenon. 

A powerful emotion, or a violent passion, so color, animate, 
and vivify ideas, that they may take a material form. 

Concentration of attention plays an important part in the 
theory of the hallucinations of celebrated persons. The facts, 
on which it rests, are those where hallucinations is reproduced 
by an effort of the will. This theory is not always admissible, 
and it is with reason that hallucinations have been referred, in 
the intermediate state of sleeping and waking, to enfeebled 
attention. In this case occurs what has been observed in seve- 
ral pathological states, where two opposite conditions occasion 
symptoms apparently similar. 

Nothing is more usual with nervous and impressible subjects, 
unenlightened by education, than to see preoccupation of mind 
becouie extreme at the approach of night, and during darkness, 
and give birth to the most strange and alarming creations. 

Imagination exercises its influence in hallucinations ; it is 
also remarked that they are often a painted reflex, the pictures 
of the thoughts and of the habitual occupations of the individual. 

Memory is not less active in the formation of hallucinations, 
for they are often reminiscences, recollections of long past sen- 
sations placed in the brain, recalled by the well-known law 



HALLUCINATIONS IN A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. 407 

of association, and to which a physical or moral cause gives all 
the vivacity of actual sensation. 

Erroneous beliefs, which may be called the hallucinations of 
reason, should be studied in their formation, because they exert 
a great influence on the production of social and individual 
hallucinations. 

False ideas play a considerable part in the production of 
hallucinations. They are no less important in the creation of 
insanity. This argument appears to decide the predominance 
of moral over physical causes. 

Their origin must be referred to forgetfulness of the two great 
laws of mankind, the knowledge of God and of self; whence 
arises the desire for the unknown, the wish to believe, the* love 
of the marvellous, the thirst of emotion, and the ardor for 
knowledge ; all so many sources of hallucinations. 

In many cases, hallucination is nothing extraordinary ; it is 
almost a normal state consistent with reason, and it is easy to 
perceive, how so many celebrated men have exhibited this 
symptom, without being insane. 

When the actions of an illustrious man are under review, we 
must never lose sight of the period in which he lived. The 
world of Cosmao was very different from that of Galileo, and 
yet reason was the same in both epochs. 

In all philosophical study of man, his duality must be recog- 
nized; without this consideration, it will be impossible to under- 
stand either his history or his biography ; that is to say, either 
his spiritual or his mortal existence. 

The hallucinations of many celebrated men belong to their 
age and not to the individual ; a proof of which is, that their 
actions are distinguished by the highest wisdom ; their enter- 
prises exhibit superior faculties, admirable judgment, great 
expansion of mind, and love of their fellow-creatures. 

The hallucinations of these personages cannot be compared 
with those of madmen ; they were the representatives of an 
epoch, a need, an idea ; they must of necessity have done as 
they did ; their mission was a providence. 

Real hallucinations are never without a mixture of insanity. 
The examples of hallucinated persons, who have, with a false 
idea, fulfilled important functions, are very rare, and have refer- 



408 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ence to individuals, who, being conscious of their state, kept a 
strict watch over themselves. 

No one of these hallucinated persons has been situated in a 
like manner to those of whom we speak. No one has been the 
expression of a useful thought. No parallel can be established 
between the powerful, creative, and animated organizations of 
the former; and the weak, plagiaristic, and sickly nature of the 
second. Individuals of both these sections have had hallucina- 
tions; but in the one case they were the result of the times, and 
exercised no influence on reason; whilst in the other, they have 
ever been more or less complicated with insanity. 

Every historical epoch, having its own peculiar characteristics 
in actions, and in thoughts, is summed up in one man, who is the 
natural expression of it. 

A well-defined line of demarcation ought to be established 
between the apparitions of Scripture and the hallucinations of 
profane history, and even of many Christians. The former, we 
are convinced, are only explainable by divine interposition, 
whilst many of the second are referable to the belief of the 
times, certain psychological conditions, and to the morbid state 
of the brain. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS 
AND ILLUSIONS. 

Of psychical and psycho-sensorial hallucinations — The interposition of the 
senses — Intellectual and sensorial phenomena of hallucinations of sight and 
hearing — Statistics — Double-sighted hallucination — Phenomena of hallucina- 
tions of smell, taste, touch, and general sensitiveness — Manner of the associa- 
tions of hallucinations — Periods favorable to the production of hallucinations — 
Hallucinations in dreams — Symptoms of illusions — Sexual hallucinations — In- 
tellectual mechanism of hallucinations — Circumstances favorable to the pro- 
duction of hallucinations — Of the hallucinatory state — Recapitulation. 

The habit of considering hallucination as an inseparable 
symptom of insanity, has hitherto diverted attention from the 
physiology of this curious phenomenon. The numerous facts 
which we have gathered, the works of our brethren, and above 
all those of M. Baillarger, enable us now to fill up the hiatus. 

But, before entering on this examination, a preliminary ques- 
tion suggests itself: is hallucination psychical or psycho-senso- 
rial ? In other words, is it purely intellectual, or does it require 
the intervention of the senses ? 

Monsieur Baillarger, who has ably sustained this double nature 
of hallucinations says, that in lunatics, hallucinations appear 
rather as purely psychical, whilst, in sane persons, the action of 
sensorial organs must be acknowledged. Thus, he considers that 
there exist two kinds of false perception ; the one complete, com- 
posed of the two elements which result from the double action of 
imagination and the organs of the senses ; these are psycho-sen- 
sorial hallucinations ; the others incomplete, resulting only from 
the involuntary exercise of memory and imagination ; these are 
psychical hallucinations. Howsoever strong a partisan this 
physician may be, for the intervention of the senses in psycho- 
sensorial hallucinations, he allows that the participation of the 
senses cannot be explained, but may, to a certain point, be 



410 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

proved. We subjoin the arguments on which his opinion i3 
founded: — 

Burdach says, in speaking of hallucinatory images, M We 
really see them ; the eye has the same sensation as if an exter- 
nal object was placed before the living and open eye."* 

Miiller adds, having attentively watched his own case, " We 
are soon convinced that they are not simple ideas, but really 
sensations." " Those who have been cured of hallucinations," 
continues Monsieur Baillarger, say, " I saw, I heard, as distinctly 
as I see and hear you ;" their hallucinations are to them actual 
sensations, "f 

Mr. Bayle has published a remarkable case in the Medical 
Hevietv, of an hallucinated young lady, who believed herself 
surrounded by demons, which she saw, heard, and touched. We 
transcribe the replies she made to those who endeavored to point 
out her error : " How are objects understood ? Because they 
are seen and touched. So I see, hear, and touch the demons 
who come out of me, and I most distinctly feel those which are 
within me. Why do you desire me to repudiate the testimony 
of my senses, to which all refer as the source of knowledge?" 
If arguments were sometimes advanced to her on the errors of 
the senses, which she could observe in other patients, she rebut- 
ted this comparison: "My eye sees,'' she would reply; "my ear 
hears, and my hand touches. The patients, of whom you speak, 
are deceived ; one of their senses is contradicted by another. 
For myself, on the contrary, I have the evidence of all." 

Gruthuisen, quoted by Burdach, reports cases which he wit- 
nessed, in which the sensorial organs retained, on awaking, the 
sensation of the impression of a dream ; thus, having dreamed 
of the discharge of a gun, his ear still rang with the sound on 
awaking, t 

M. Baillarger chiefly finds the most satisfactory details in sup- 
port of his opinions in observations on false visual perceptions. 

The English physiologist Bostock, whose curious hallucina- 
tions I have related, remarked that the images followed the 

* Burdach, Traite de Physiologie, trad, par Jourdan, t. v. p. 206, Paris, 
1839. 

f Miiller, Manuel de Physiologie, trad, par Jourdan, t. ii. p. 606, Paris, 
1845. 

t Ojp. cit. t. v. p. 202. 






PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 411 

direction of the eyes. Gruthuisen has seen cases in which these 
images concealed external objects. Amongst other facts, he 
relates that, agreeably to ordinary optical laws, a very brilliant 
fantastic image left in its place a figure similar in appearance, 
but dim and shadowy. 

The decreasing progression in the brilliancy of images, and 
above all, the persistence of certain portions, should be recol- 
lected in demonstrating the action of the organs of the senses. 

The case of the English doctor, M. H., which I have given, 
is, according to M. Baillarger, a most important one to prove 
that phenomena truly sensorial exist in hallucinated persons. 
Thus, when this physician turned around, after having gazed on 
a brilliant object, he continued to see it for a considerable time. 
"Wishing to verify the experience of Dr. Brewster, on the dis- 
tinction of real or fanciful objects, he pressed the globe of one of 
his eyes, and saw the figure before him double and of its natural 
size.* 

The argument of M. Baillarger, which we give as faithfully as 
possible, does not carry conviction to our minds, and we clo not 
find in it any proof which places beyond doubt the intervention 
of the senses in hallucination, and the production of the image 
in the eye. As to the motives alleged by Burdach and Muller, 
to prove that the perception is the same as that experienced by 
a clear and open eye, we reply, that a man whose leg has been 
amputated, complains, long afterwards, of a pain in his foot; 
the sensation is as real to him as if the member had not been 
removed. 

We purposed making several important objections to this 
theory ; but the critical investigation to which M. de Chambre 
has subjected the question appearing to us to sum up the prin- 
cipal ones, we confine ourselves to a quotation. 

" We have never been able to discover clearly, notwithstand- 
ing the great authority of Muller and Burdach, the alleged in- 
tervention of the senses in hallucinations. According to the 
former, visions are actually conditions of the sense of sight, and 
according to the latter, we then perceive in the eye, when the 

* Baillarger, Des Hallucinations, des Causes qui les procluisent, et des 
Maladies qu'elles caracterisent (in the Memoires de l'Academie Royale de 
Medecine, t. 12, p. 369). 



412 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

thought occurs, the same sensation as if an external object was 
placed before the open eye. Experimentally, if it be thus, if 
the organ of sense be a function, and sensation exists in the or- 
gan, it necessarily follows that hallucination would be impossi- 
ble if that organ were destroyed. Thus the blind would have 
no visions, the deaf would hear no voices. Now, we know that 
the contrary is often the case. The reply to this objection is, 
that if the organ itself be incapable of sensation, that part of the 
brain to which the sensation belongs is the seat of the phenome- 
non. But what does this mean ? Has the brain one dwelling 
for the sensation of sight, another for the sensation of hearing, 
a third for that of taste ? And even if it had, how will it affect 
those who deny the intervention of the senses in hallucination ? 
If this phenomenon occurs solely in one part of the brain, it has 
nothing to do with the sensorial organ of the eye or the ear, 
and that is all they maintain. Beyond these terms, lies nothing 
but darkness. Theoretically, the intervention of the senses, as 
it is here understood, appears to us useless or impossible. One 
or other of these two things must be said: either a false sensa- 
tion formed in the eye, is conveyed to the brain, or the brain, 
by the action of a false thought, creates a sensation on the eye. 
Now, an image cannot be formed in the eye without an external 
object; for an image existing only in the sensorial organ, and 
before the intervention of the brain, is not and cannot be any- 
thing but a certain arrangement of luminous rays. So much for 
the first sense. In regard to the second, may not the unregu- 
lated exercise of thought be, as Burdach asserts, the occasion of 
a false sensation in the eye? It will be conceded that the idea 
is far from being lucid. How can a cerebral or a psychical con- 
ception engender the sensation of an image in the eye ? In any 
case, of what use is this hypothesis? Is not a delirious concep- 
tion wrought in the brain ? When, for instance, it has imagined 
a legion of devils in action, the phenomenon is complete. Why 
say that it cannot occur without the intervention of the eye ? 
If the devils really exist, it is not the eye, but the brain that sees 
them. In hallucination, the brain imagines, creates, and 
perfects them, and that is precisely the fundamental character 
of the phenomenon. All this does not prevent a distinction be- 
tween intellectual hallucinations and those which are charac- 
terized by a sensible sign, a phenomenon of the sensorial order, 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 413 

and, in this respect, the works of some moderns, MM. Baillarger 
and Michea in particular, have been of essential service. It is 
true that certain hallucinated persons, like certain mystics, 
hear what they call internal voices, a sort of inarticulated words, 
a mute communication, audible only in the mind ; that others, 
on the contrary, very distinctly hear voices who call them, and 
reply to them, and with whom they hold long conversations. 
Let them give to the first kind of hallucination the name of 
psychical, and to the second that of psycho-sensorial, nothing 
can be better. Let them strictly uphold that both the one and 
the other are engendered in the different portions of the brain, 
some physiologists may agree to this. But they are nowise 
authorized to admit, in the last, the intervention of the senses."* 

But whilst rejecting the intervention of the senses, M. de 
Chambre no less recognizes their division into psycho-sensorial 
and psychical, as useful to assist in the study of hallucinations. 
We also think the distinction good, and adopt it, with the re- 
mark that we consider it applies only to the greater or less 
intensity of the phenomenon. If the perception be weak, the 
hallucination is noiseless — if more powerful, a sound is per- 
ceptible. We have ourselves noticed these mental conversations 
without the emission of any sound ; but these conversations 
would be impossible if the word spoken had not accompanied the 
word thought ; that is, if the conventional sign had not been 
attached to the idea. If, therefore, we do not admit the inter- 
vention of the senses in the production of hallucinations, we are 
no less convinced that the two constituent elements of human 
nature are found in the hallucinatory reminiscence, and, in this 
point of view, we have also adopted the division of the pheno- 
mena of hallucinations into intellectual and sensorial. 

In studying the hallucinations of sane persons, it is allowed, 
as we have already remarked, that those of sight are the most 
common, whilst, in the insane, those of hearing are the most 
frequent and most complex. According to Marc, hallucinations 
of hearing occur in at least two-thirds of the patients. Amongst 
the most simple and the least intellectual hallucinations of hear- 
ing, M. Baillarger ranks those of lunatics who hear different 

* A. De Chambre, Analyse de l'ouvrage du Docteur Staf kowski sur les 
Hallucinations, Gazette Medicale, 1850, p. 274. 



414 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

kinds of noises, such as the ringing of bells, firing of guns, etc. 
Then follow those which consist in the repetition of the same 
words. This phenomenon is equally noticed in persons in a 
healthy condition ; thus, the pronouncing of a name, or even 
a word, obstinately dwells in the mind, harasses it awhile, and 
suddenly disappears. 

Hallucinations in a higher degree reproduce, like an echo, the 
habitual preoccupation of the patients, their ideas, their studies, 
and their words. 

We may here notice the analogy of a mental habit with sound 
reason, in which many persons detect themselves talking to and 
replying to themselves. This bias of the mind often occasions 
a curious phenomenon. A man who reads a book or corrects a 
proof, full of the thought which engrosses him, reads it accord- 
ing to the text, although there is no similitude between the 
words written and the words thought. 

Hallucinations appear sometimes to affect strange forms ; but 
on careful examination, their elements are found to have been 
imbibed from books, pictures, traditions, etc. Thus, in the Middle 
Ages, the figure of the devil was borrowed from the prevailing 
architecture of the time, whose fantastic compositions formed 
extraordinary ornaments in their Catholic churches ; witness the 
Abbey of St. Martin de Boscherville, near Rouen. 

Hallucinations may be derived from objects long since observed 
and subjects long since forgotten, recalled to the memory by 
some unconscious cause, often by the association of ideas ; thus 
it is true that, in the great majority of cases, hallucinations are 
only reminiscences or creations of known objects. Sometimes, 
however, it is impossible to discover any connection between 
these false sensations, and occupations thoughts and works. 
Nicolai and Bostock declare that they could not trace any 
foundation for their visions. Cardan says that he several times 
had visions of suits of armor, although it was an object entirely 
unknown to him. 

Hallucinations have not always the character of a fixed idea, 
or a dominant passion ; they are sometimes only the reproduc- 
tion of recollections and of objects which had impressed the 
senses. The delirium then assumes a remarkable versatility, 
both in conversation and action. This is also noticed in some 
kinds of mania and in febrile delirium. In other circumstances, 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 415 

after having commenced under a simple form, or having only 
assumed the hallucinations at the close of a certain time, or 
gradually, they become general, irregular, and attached at the 
same time to several delirious conceptions. 

It may happen that the deranged persons imagine the voices 
which they hear to come from without, and M. Baillarger observes 
this to be most commonly the case. Very often, too, the interlocu- 
tors are designated by the pronouns he, she, them, and the par- 
ticle they. When the patients are questioned as to whom these 
vague denominations apply to, they cannot give any definite an- 
swer. When illusions are added to these errors, the patients usu- 
ally attribute them to those persons who are about them. Far 
from considering the words addressed to them as a product of their 
own minds, they attribute them to others; thus they are spoken 
to in the second 'person. Their minds embrace as it were two 
kinds of thought, the one which they know belongs to them- 
selves, the other which they attribute to strangers ; this is the 
fact of intellectual duality noticed in the inspired. These voices 
may express themselves in the third person, and reveal to them 
plots contrived against them. 

Hallucinations of hearing sustain the for and against, and 
reflect the strifes of conscience ; there are two voices, the one 
urging to good, the other to evil. 

This internal combat occurs also in a state of sanity. In 
fact, it is not unusual to be harassed between two opposite influ- 
ences, one of which counsels the adoption of a certain course, 
and the other opposes it. 

"Some hypochondriacs," says Mons. Falret, "suffer inde- 
scribable anxiety ; they conceive that all manner of precautions 
are taken to prevent them from committing suicide, whilst 
secretly the means for effecting it are pointed out. These pa- 
tients look repulsive and gloomy ; despair is painted in all 
their features; their skin is cadaverous; their deeply-sunk eyes 
are yellow and bloodshot. Cephalalgia exists more or less, usu- 
ally confined to the forehead, and particularly to the root of the 
nose. They have a sense of beating within the head ; are wake- 
ful, or, if they sleep, have troubled dreams and see fantastic 
apparitions." 

This psychological characteristic demands the attention of the 
student. It would appear that the same individual has two 



416 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

different beings, the one the principle of good, the other of evil ; it 
is the strife between the good and bad angels. We have related 
the case of a female who was urged to suicide, by hearing the most 
disagreeable, painful, and frightful things said to her, and who, 
at the moment of abandoning herself to despair, felt strength- 
ened and consoled ; like the scales of a balance, each rising and 
falling alternately. Leuret attributes the error of personality 
in the deranged (of which we have seen so remarkable an in- 
stance in the St. Yon Asylum, in a man named Lambert, who 
believed that he died at Austerlitz) to that double action, in 
virtue of which all the reasonings, objections, and remarks which 
they use in their arguments, and their dreams, lead them to 
think that it is another individual who thus disputes ; and this 
obliges them to say : " They make me act ; they make me speak ; 
they drive me." 

There are some hallucinated persons who converse succes- 
sively with three, four, and as many as a dozen or fifteen per- 
sons, each of whose voices they profess to distinguish. Occa- 
sionally, the number of voices diminishes or augments. In the 
preceding examples, the deranged heard the voices but did not 
reply to them ; the contrary might happen ; in which case, 
actual conversations would take place; asides, with invisible 
characters. Under these circumstances, the persons affected 
often speak in two different voices. 

Hallucinations are seldom under the control of the will ; they 
are manifested without consciousness on the part of the indi- 
vidual. They surprise him by day and by night, and follow 
him everywhere. We speak chiefly of morbid hallucinations. 
In some cases, however, they can be conjured up at will. This 
fact, admitted by Mons. Baillarger, is a powerful argument 
against his theory of the weakening of attention. Abercrombie's 
patient could instantly evoke the figures he desired. So also did 
the celebrated Niebuhr. In the former example, the halluci- 
nations, once produced, remained a considerable time. Many 
estimable men, subject to this state of the brain, have remarked 
that it is very difficult to reproduce, by a powerful concentration 
of thought, the object of the hallucination, although it appeared 
but a few moments previously, of itself, and without the slight- 
est effort. 

When hallucinations of hearing take place in those who speak 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 417 

several languages, the voices are more distinct in those with 
which they are most familiar ; and become more confused if the 
foreign language is only slightly understood. Thus the prefect 
quoted by Esquirol, heard the Russian dialect less distinctly, 
because he was less acquainted with that language. 

Possibly, the intellectual faculties receive a greater develop- 
ment in hallucination. This fact, which has been disputed, is 
evident in inspired persons and ecstatics. A lady one day ob- 
served to us: "Voices suggest expressions to me with which I 
am not familiar; they give me words much superior to those I 
have been in the habit of using, or which my education justifies. 
Their conversation often runs on geography, politics, and on 
domestic economy, questions to which I am a stranger, but 
which I perfectly comprehend when the voices suggest them." 
It is to this exaltation of mind, to enthusiasm, to the choice of 
words, eloquence, and the nature of the organization, that we 
must refer the great influence some hallucinated persons have 
exercised over their fellow-creatures. 

To this cause, Mohammed, doubtless, owed his immense in- 
fluence over a large portion of mankind. No, certainly, this 
man was neither mad, nor an impostor! The thought of reform, 
which engrossed his imagination, had the same effect on him, as 
the transformation into corporeity of some of Luther's habitual 
ideas. Persuaded of the truth of his mission, but inhabiting a 
country delighting in the belief of the wonderful, he finally 
believed that he held intercourse with a celestial messenger ; 
whilst Luther, harassed, pursued, excommunicated, surrounded 
by adversaries, replying to them only in transports of rage, 
living in the North, in the midst of all the beliefs of the Middle 
Ages, saw his ruling idea take the form of the devil. But the 
reason of neither was overturned, and their actions were ever 
worthy of their respective missions. 

We might, also, here repeat the hallucinations of Tasso : 
" The subjects on which he conversed," says Manso, "were so 
elevated, the style was so sublime and extraordinary, that sur- 
prise, in some measure, put me beside myself." In the library 
of Ferrara, we have seen poems by this great master, which 
prove that the hallucinations, of which Manso speaks, had not 
weakened his intellect. 
27 



418 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Again, hallucinations may be the reproduction of former lively 
sensations. 

M. Baillarger lias published an interesting case of a female, 
who, having seen her husband struck by a ball in the midst of a 
riot, was, during subsequent insanity, tormented by the firing of 
guns, and a noise similar to the breaking of windows by balls, etc. 

Sensorial phenomena, so called, in hallucinations of hearing, 
consist, according to our view, in a greater degree of intensity. 
Thus, deranged persons sometimes hear solemn and sonorous 
voices. Dr. Bland mentions a young lady, who suddenly heard, 
whilst at work in her parlor, a deep and solemn voice which 
repeatedly called to her. The same hallucination occurred three 
different times in the same month, and never afterwards."* 

Hallucinations of hearing sometimes consist in noises, which 
the patients think they hear, such as the striking of clocks, the 
trotting of horses, as in the celebrated apparition of Ticinus to 
Mercatus. The young man, who heard the sound of the waves 
of the sea, entreated those about him to rescue him from the 
waters that rose around him. 

We must also refer to hallucinations of hearing those nu- 
merous stories of plaintive sighs heaved by the victims of a 
great crime, of spirits from the other world come to give coun- 
sel, to announce an important event, or to recall the memory of 
a bad action, the rustling of garments, footsteps treading the 
room in the silence of midnight, doors opening, sighs, lamenta- 
tions, etc. 

In general, voices are either murmuring or whispering. The 
sound may suddenly entirely cease. The conversation of the 
hallucinated with the creations of their brain, appear to them- 
selves so rapid, and so silent, that they explain it by a kind of 
intuition, an electric shock, a magnetic action, an intelligence 
of two beings, a conversation in thoughts. Blake, the celebrated 
seer of Bedlam, said to one who interrogated him on his commu- 
nications with invisible beings : " We speak mind to mind." These 
are facts highly important to psychology, because they present 
numerous points of resemblance with the phenomena observed 
in the state described by mystic authors, and with those of 
magnetism, somnambulism, etc. 

* Medical Review, May, 1842. 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 419 

Sometimes the voices are close at hand, sometimes far off, 
and in different directions. They may be concealed above the 
head, under the floor, may come from a neighboring house, from 
the chimney, from a bedpost, a bureau, a bed, or anything. 
Madame D hears voices far off in the fields ; they are hid- 
den under a tree ; and she replies to them as if she had a speak- 
ing-trumpet. Voices may proceed from heaven. Lord Herbert, 
the greatest deist of the age, heard a sound from heaven, which 
decided him to publish his work against Christianity. 

Sometimes the voices are only heard by one ear. The pa- 
tient of whom Bodin speaks, and who, according to Guy Patin, 
must have been Bodin himself, heard sometimes with the right, 
sometimes with the left ear. M. Calmeil, in his article Hallu- 
cinations of the Dictionnaire de Medecine, in 25 vols., thus ex- 
presses himself: "Some subjects affirm that the sounds which 
they believe they hear, penetrate at times into the left, at others 
into the right ear." In the Traite des Apparitions et des Vam- 
pires, by Don Calmet (t. ii. p. 371), we read the case of a young 
man who, in his left ear, heard distinctly a voice proceeding 
from the corner of the cabinet, which seemed about a foot above 
his head, and which spoke very correctly to him for half a 
minute, desiring him to perform a certain action, on which it 
recommended secresy. 

Mons. Miche'a has given to this phenomenon the title of 
double hallucination (hallucination dedoublee). It is not easily 
discovered but in the senses of touch, sight, and hearing. We 
will relate some instances mentioned by this author. 

John Lairy was attacked with a high fever. On the tenth 
day of his sickness a very remarkable hallucination took place. 
He believed that a man was attached to his right side, who was 
equally ill with himself. It was his dominant idea. He spoke 
only of the companion who partook in his sufferings. He was 
very angry that no attention was paid to this companion, par- 
ticularly that nothing was given him to drink, whilst all the 
care and nourishment was bestowed upon him. He frequently 
conversed with him ; and, when the fever had abated, it ap- 
peared to him that the individual had risen, but was not far off. 
On every other subject the patient was perfectly sane. To the 
endeavor to persuade him that all he believed himself to see and 
hear was only the result of an irritability of the brain, he re- 



420 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

plied with violence : " But here he is ; he returns ; I feel him, I 
touch him, I see him, I speak to him, and he replies." 

At the end of three weeks, he said that his comrade had 
quitted him during the night, having left him, for a legacy, a 
bladder filled with blood.* 

Marcel Donat mentions a woman, fifty years of age, who, sub- 
sequently to a severe illness, incessantly saw spiders, spectres, 
and tombs. These false perceptions only appeared when she 
opened the left eye, the right being closed, whilst in a reversed 
action she saw nothing strange. Marcel Donat said that neither 
eye exhibited any disease either in the humors or the tunica. 

Mons. Michea, who has more particularly noticed double hal- 
lucinations, draws the conclusion that the fanciful object which 
appears transmitted to the perception by a single one of the 
symmetrical portions of a sensorial organ, is one of the charac- 
teristics by the aid of which we can distinguish the subjective 
sensorial perception from the subjective cerebral perception. 
We have already replied to this opinion on the intervention of 
the senses. Dr. Wigan would have cited this double hallucina- 
tion in support of his doctrine of the duality of the brain. 

It is not unusual for hallucinations of hearing to be accom- 
panied or preceded by different kinds of noises. The patients 
hear noises overhead, and on the walls ; or the noises resemble 
humming, hissing in the ears, or breathing. 

Hallucinations of hearing, instead of being external, become 
internal. The voices emanate from the head, the breast, the 
epigastrium, the abdomen ; and some patients have imagined 
themselves to become ventriloquists. This symptom is not con- 
fined to those having hallucinations, but occurs also with som- 
nambulists, cataleptics, and in certain hysterical cases. 

Auditive hallucinations are very frequent with the insane, 
even if they are deaf. An old lady of seventy, blind and deaf, 
whom we several times attended, heard the conversation of her 
friends, and was much amused. It is said that Beethoven, who 
became entirely deaf in his latter years, distinctly heard the 
performance of his sublime compositions repeated in his head. 

The frequent occurrence of hallucinations of sight in persons 

* M. Boursat, Observat. d'Halluc. (Encyclograph. M6d., Feb. 1845), p. 
327. Hist. Med. Mirabil. Francf. 1513, lib. ii. cap. i. 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 421 

perfectly sane, is well known ; which caused us to say, in our 
first edition, that they were more numerous than those of hear- 
ing. A glance at the annals of the Middle Ages will satisfy us 
on this point. 

Amongst intellectual phenomena of this sense, we must place 
the reproduction of a single object, alivays the same, during an 
indefinite period. One of our brethren, Dr. W. saw constantly 
before him a black cow, and became so worn out with the per- 
sistency of this false sensation that he destroyed himself. No 
one who has read the Demonology of Sir Walter Scott, can 
forget the spectre of the physician. The ancestor of Sir 
Charles Bonnet, who, wide awake, saw before him the figures 
of men and women, birds, ships, etc., is an interesting example. 
It is important to notice that he did not, like visionaries, take 
these visions for realities. He was able to judge sanely of all 
these apparitions, and correct his first impressions. 

M. Lclorgne de Savigny, of the Institute, who was for twenty 
years distressed by a malady in which hallucinations of sight 
formed one of the chief symptoms, relates, as amongst the 
most common of his visions, "the scene of a spacious vault 
built up of innumerable human countenances, all equally ex- 
pressive, but yet," he adds, "all having a kind of inflexibility, 
and fixing on me malicious looks."* 

Religious madmen and ecstatics present the most complex 
examples of hallucinations of the sight. One of these mono- 
maniacs, several times under treatment at Bicetre, experi- 
enced the most varied visions; he saw future generations pass 
before his eyes, and spread out before him like the most magni- 
ficent pictures, f 

Visions often bear an intimate relation to the actual preoccu- 
pation of mind of the patient. Thus, we see in our dreams the 
image of the person who has engaged our thoughts during the 
day. At other times they are the reproduction of vivid exter- 
nal sensations. M. Baillarger gives the following example, 
taken from Pariset's lectures: "A general, whose fame is known 
throughout the world, was one day unadvisedly drawn, during a 

* Annales Medico-Psycho., t. iv. p. 34. 

f Histoire d'un Fou gueri deux fois malgre les Medecins et une fois 
sans eux. 



422 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

battle, into the midst of his enemies. Separated from his own 
troops, and surrounded by adversaries, he looked for immediate 
death. He however escaped, but the impression which his 
danger left on his mind was profound and lasting. Since then, 
this general has filled a throne, but he has occasionally expe- 
rienced a singular hallucination. Suddenly, in the midst of the 
silence of the palace, he has been heard to utter violent excla- 
mations, and has been found as in the act of defending himself. 
It has lasted but a few moments, but it was the scene of the 
combat re-enacted to his sight. Pariset adds, that this false 
sensation decreased with the advance of age. 

All ideas and preoccupations may be transformed into hallu- 
cinations ; and, consequently, be as various as the individuals ; 
we will restrict ourselves to a few examples of lesions of this 
function of most common recurrence. There are some halluci- 
nists who see the police-officers seeking for them. One, to 
escape them, jumps, almost naked, from the window. Others 
tremble at the sight of the scaffold, the executioner, and gen- 
darmes. Melancholy monomaniacs, who imagine that they are 
pursued, see none but enemies around them. Women frequently 
have visions of angels and devils. Spectres, phantoms, and 
menacing countenances appear very frequently in some kinds 
of insanity. Cats, dogs, serpents, etc., are also of frequent 
occurrence. Cardinal de Brienne asserted that his bed was 
filled with scorpions, which attempted to devour him. 

In erotic ideas, the apparitions of angels, men, and beautiful 

women, are frequent. Madame C sees four men enter her 

room every night, who allow her no rest. Another thinks that 
the young men who enter her door deserve all the punishments 
under heaven. In educated minds, hallucinations may be com- 
posed of subjects of study. Blake, of Bedlam, received visits 
from every great historical character. The poet Harrington 
saw bees, flies, and birds constantly exuding from his skin. 
Hallucinists frequently have no recollection of persons or things 
which they see. A man told us that he saw three strange men, 
who, after making grimaces at him, climbed up the stove-pipe 
and disappeared. Under some circumstances long processions 
and figures of all kinds pass in review. An old lady of eighty, 
expressed the great pleasure she derived at the sight of the 
large company assembled. The thousands who composed it, in 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 423 

full dress, passed and repassed with their wives and children, 
partaking of the amusements of the fete. Another lady received 
company, who played, took tea, and conducted themselves like 
characters in real life. 

Visions are frequently the painted reflex of the occupations 
of the hallucinated. A student in theology insists that the devil 
enters him and takes up his abode in his brain. A learned 
Englishman, Ben Jonson, passed a whole night in watching an- 
cient nations engaged in battle around his arm-chair. Luther 
is surrounded with flaming torches, and fights against the devil, 
who wears the black gown of a proctor. Zimmerman sees enemies 
everywhere. Cardan, whose son is implicated in a plot which 
will lead to his death, is struck by the sight of a bloody mark 
on his finger, which increases during fifteen days. Ravaillac 
relates that he saw victims flying before him, and foumrSm a 
statue the head of a Moor whom he had seen in the studio of an 
artist. 

Many criminals have been pursued by the spectres of those 
whom they have assassinated; some are horrified at seeing the 
ghost of a father, mother, or child, notwithstanding the fact 
that these beings are living and present with them. 

Hallucinations of sight, which reproduce the objects that are 
the most interesting to, and make the greatest impression on the 
multitude, have excited general attention in a very high degree; 
they are also discussed in a number of works under the name of 
visions. 

This belief in visions was formerly so universal, that there 
was neither castle, churchyard, house, secluded spot, or street 
which was not haunted by one. Everybody was the hero of an 
apparition ; and hallucinations, heretofore occurring singly, ap- 
peared as an epidemic ; thus, during the plague in Neocesarea, 
spectres were seen to enter the houses ; likewise in Egypt, in 
the time of the Emperor Justinian, black men, without heads, 
were seen to row on the sea in boats of brass. During an epi- 
demic which depopulated Constantinople, demons were seen 
running from house to house, and ' striking the inhabitants with 
death. 

In the consideration of 177 cases of hallucination, we found 
the proportion as follows : — 



424 



ON HALLUCINATIONS. 



Hallucinations of sight .... 


78 


of sight and hearing . 

of hearing 

of sight, hearing, and touch 

of sight and touch 

of sight, hearing, and smell 


46 

16 

4 

8 

1 


of sight, taste, and smell . 

of hearing and touch . 

of smell .... 


1 

2 
3 


of taste .... 


2 


of smell and taste 


1 


of touch .... 


9 


of all the senses 


6 



177 



Out of these 177 cases of hallucinations, 25 were combined 
with illusions. 

According to this abstract, hallucinations of sight will be 
found to occupy the foremost rank, those of sight and hearing 
the second, and those of hearing the third.* 

The sensorial phenomena of hallucinations of sight are more 
interesting than those of hearing ; because the images can be 
followed out in detail and described with clearness and preci- 
sion. In the hallucination of the medical student mentioned by 
Chardel, the figures were bright as silver, the eyes had a sinister 
expression, the robes were of grayish white ; the ecclesiastic 
who subsequently appeared with a book in his left hand, was 
pale, and full of dignity, etc. Burdach, speaking of the fan- 
tastic images which precede sleep, describes them as " some- 
times simple outlines, sometimes shadowy figures ; now the 
images are luminous and colored, and now appear light on a 
dark background." Instead of being thus clear, apparitions 
are indefinite, confused, as if seen through a gauze veil ; of a 
whitish vapory appearance, the shadows of a shade ; hence, evi- 
dently, the forms ascribed to spectres, phantoms, and spirits ; 
and the reason of this is, because the ideas being incompletely 



* The statistics which we give relate principally to persons of sane 
minds. 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 425 

formed in the brain, are consequently but imperfectly clothed 
in their material forms. 

To this cause must be added the influence of darkness and 
silence ; occasionally, figures and objects are only half formed. 
Hallucinists see only a portion of a body — the head, or the 
limbs; sometimes they see it reversed, or divided in half. 
Moreover, an apparition may only consist of an arm, a hand, 
or an eye. A woman told us, long since, that she constantly saw 
a head in profile, the eye of which was always looking at her. 
This variety explains the stories told of heads which haunt 
criminals, and of a vengeful eye ever gazing on a culprit. 
We have given the case of an hallucinated female, who saw her 
eye leave its socket and roll on before her.* 

Visual creations undergo motions, changes of dimension, and 
transformations of form. Thus objects which appear fixed, 
begin to move and increase indefinitely, until they vanish into 
distance. Some, on the contrary, gradually shrink until they 
appear to sink into the earth. 

Mr. Bayle mentions an old custom-house officer, who was 
daily tormented, at a certain hour, by a very singular vision; 
all at once he would perceive a spider suspended from the mid- 
dle of the ceiling. He would see it increase in size, until it 
completely filled the room, which he was obliged to leave, in 
order to avoid being stifled by this horrible and gigantic animal. 
He recognized an optical delusion, but could not surmount the 
horror with which it inspired him. 

Hallucination, most usually, appears suddenly; it may dis- 
appear in like manner or persist for a certain time. "A lady," 
says Mathey, "on returning home one evening, saw a man in 
her room, who fled and disappeared through a closed door." The 
case of Nicolai, already described, contains curious details of 
the gradual disappearance of the images. The figures began to 
move more slowly, they then became paler, then vapory, and, 
finally, dissolved into air. The spectre seen by Spinosa, in his 
retreat at Rhinbourg, disappeared thus gradually, its colors 
growing weaker around the head of the philosopher. f The 

* Theologians have termed apparition a false perception of an object 
vaguely known ; and vision that in which the object is clearly manifested. 
— Le Cardinal Bona, Du Discernement des Esprits. trad. Franc, p. 675. 

f Opera Posthuma, epist. xxx., Petro Balling, pp. 471-472. 



426 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

duration of false visual sensations varies considerably. In some 
cases it only lasts a few minutes, whilst in others the same 
image has been visible for twenty-four hours or longer. Hallu- 
cinations may supervene, almost at the same time, with general 
delirium, and also cease with it. This disposition, according to 
M. Lelut, occurs principally with young subjects, of a sanguine 
temperament and a lively and excitable disposition. 

Although night, darkness, and silence are favorable to the 
production of visions, certain individuals have them indifferently 
by day or night. Objects may disappear on closing the eyes, 
and appear again on reopening them. With some exceptions, 
visions only occur during the day, and darkness, far from favor- 
ing them, makes them, on the contrary, disappear. But there 
are also some in whom they occur with eyes either open or 
closed. 

The images which appear to the hallucinists usually confront 
them, but in some instances they are by their sides. The 
distance at which they are seen varies curiously. The skeleton 
head mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, appeared at the foot of 
the bed. 

Sometimes the position of the image changes with the direc- 
tion of the sight. The physiologist Bostock says that appari- 
tions always follow the movement of the eyes. Many cases seem 
to prove that the intervention of an opaque body may conceal 
the fancied image. The celebrated English artist, Martin, saw, 
it is said, beforehand, and by a real hallucination, the pictures 
whose plan and composition he had not yet even contemplated. 

Science offers many analogous cases ; but it is more usual to 
find fantastic images conceal external objects from the sight of 
the diseased person. The German physiologist, Gruthuisen, 
says he is perfectly sure that floating images entirely hid the 
furniture of the room from his sight. 

Hallucinations of sight occur less frequently with the blind 
than do those of hearing with the deaf. Nevertheless, science 
is in possession of several examples, and in our own practice we 
have noticed three. We have mentioned that of the celebrated 
Niebuhr, who described to his friends all the various scenes 
which he had formerly seen in his travels ; whilst he spoke, 
they rose up before him in all the coloring, animation, and 
splendor of nature. An old lady, of eighty-two years, saw a 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 427 

considerable number of persons enter her room daily ; she bad 
the door and window opened in order that they might pass out. 
In the private hospital of my daughter, Madame Rivet, is a 
person blind, deaf, and dumb, who both sees and hears. 

Hallucinations of smell, taste, and touch are simpler than 
those ivhich we have just examined. They are only the repro- 
duction of a sensorial impression. It is very difficult to dis- 
tinguish them from illusions. 

Some individuals who experience hallucinations of smell, think 
they inhale the most exquisite perfumes ; others, again, com- 
plain that they are poisoned by mephitic and pestilential odors. 
The appearance of holy personages fills the room with the most 
delicious scents, whilst that of demons leaves . sulphuric and 
noisome exhalations. A madman, who had sinned against good 
morals, complained that the devil had enveloped him in a cloud 
of sulphur. M. Baillarger knew a lady who was continually 
distressed by an infectious odor which she believed to emanate 
from herself. One day that Esquirol invited her to walk in the 
garden, she refused, fearing, as she said, that all the plants 
would be killed by the scent from her person. 

To these hallucinations, and this species of delirium, may be 
referred what Don Calmet relates of certain men, "who damaged 
all they looked upon, even to the breasts of the nurses, whose 
milk they dried up ; the plants, flowers, and leaves of the trees, 
which fell off and died on their approach ; so that they dared not 
enter any place without first giving notice, in order that children, 
nurses, young animals, and everything which their looks could 
infect, should be removed."* In proportion as we progress in the 
study of this singular affection, do we account for a host of 
historical documents, which the ignorant skepticism of the 
eighteenth century has ranked amongst fables. 

Hallucinations of taste are likewise rare ; they are generally 
observed at the commencement of insanity, and during its most 
active period. Cases in which they exist alone, in a chronic 
state are very unusual. Such persons believe they are partaking 
of excellent viands and drinking delicious wines, although they 
have really nothing. Others complain of having detestable 
food, tasting of verdigris. Illusions of taste are more frequent. 

* Traite sur les Apparitions, t. i. p. 463. 



428 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The insane lick the walls, believing them to be sugar ; they eat 
gravel, earth, and dirt, and maintain that they are of excellent 
flavor. The difficulty of distinguishing these lesions of sensi- 
bility, above all in mania, explains the reason why they have 
hitherto been slightly noticed. It is also frequently difficult to 
distinguish hallucinations of touch from illusions. One of the 
most common forms is that caused by imaginary electric, galvanic, 
and pneumatic machines, and by physics and chemistry. The 
patients complain of being experimented on, professing that 
they have received electric discharges, have been pierced, 
pinched, beaten, and whipped. 

Mathews, mentioned by Haslam, professed to be under the 
control of a set of wretches, who, by means of an ingenious ma- 
chine, of which he gave a description and drawing, put him to 
insufferable torture. Some feel themselves pierced with nails, 
and lacerated; others affirm that they are being suffocated, that 
persons and animals are walking over them, that they are thrown 
down, and half killed with blows. This peculiarity should be 
generally known, as such an assertion on the part of the patients 
has frequently imposed on their relatives. 

The impression of touch is very frequent in females. One 
young lady affirms that she is nightly flogged until blood flows. 
Another, somewhat advanced, complains to us, with great indig- 
nation, that she is very ill treated. 

Sorcerers affirm that they were often struck by the devil, who 
thrashed them soundly ; they ate and drank at very splendid 
feasts. Many remarked that these repasts did not nourish them, 
for they felt as hungry as before. One of my patients, a de- 
ranged paralytic, complained to me that every night his feet 
were burned. Two others were continually moving from place 
to place, to escape the wind that was blowing on their legs ; and 
Kavaillac felt a figure jumping on his body. 

The sensation of being detained by invisible hands, and in 
females, of being sucked, should also be mentioned. Some of 
the insane complain that, during the night, all their blood is 
pumped out by frightful figures, who suck them. 

It cannot be disputed that these different cases of hallucina- 
tion, above all those affecting the senses generally, maybe iden- 
tified so closely with illusions that it is almost impossible to 
separate them ; but in other cases, it is acknowledged that the 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 429 

sensations of hypochondriacs appear evidently to arise in the 
brain, and may, by concentration of thought, act on its organs, 
and cause nervous disorders. Some insane persons think their 
heads so light that they must be empty, or so heavy that they 
seem filled with lead. 

From close observation, it seems to be decided that halluci- 
nations are rarely confined to one sense ; in recognizing the 
truth of this fact, on which M. Foville particularly insists, we 
may add that, in general, hallucinations of one sense prevail 
greatly over the others. It is chiefly in acute diseases that the 
union of several hallucinations takes place. 

Hallucinations of the different senses often occur in conjunc- 
tions of two or three. Dr. Pressat remarked that false senso- 
rial sensations succeeded each other in the same patient in the 
following order : Hallucinations of sight or hearing, of smell, 
then of taste and touch, " so that," said he, "the last have 
always brought in their train those of the preceding sense ; thus 
hallucination of smell is also that of sight and hearing ; general 
hallucination of touch is also that of sight, hearing, smell, and 
taste, at the same time. 

When hallucinations of several senses exist, they are ordi- 
narily intimately connected ; as may be remarked in the case of 
the patient who licked the walls because they appeared to him 
to be covered with delicious oranges, at the same time that he 
inhaled their odor and tasted the fruit. 

Hallucinations of several senses sometimes reproduce vivid 
anterior sensations, which had occurred simultaneously. On 
this point, M. Baillarger mentions a woman on whose head a 
flower-pot fell, and who directly afterwards heard the noise it 
made in being shattered on the pavement. Subsequently, 
twenty times a day, she felt the same blow, and heard the same 
sound. 

Association of ideas explains, in an infinity of cases, the 
simultaneous existence of hallucinations of several senses. 

The psychical hallucinations of M. Baillarger, of which we 
are about to point out the principal characteristics, have been 
severely criticized by M. Michea, who has termed them false 
hallucinations. " It is," he says, " a strange error, to make the 
study of dreams a basis on which to build two kinds of halluci- 
nations. All fantastic perceptions occurring to a man in sleep, 



430 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

are to him as realities. To admit of hallucinations stripped of 
their appearance of objectivity, words without sound, images 
without form and color, is to confuse all psychological forms. 
Hallucination implies always and necessarily the appearance of 
an external object, a concrete phenomenon, a material reality."* 
According to M. Michda, a false hallucination is the form which 
serves as a direct transition to sensorial illusion, as the latter is 
the form which immediately precedes real hallucination. f 

We will not repeat the arguments of M. De Chambre, nor our 
own, on the absence of proper proofs, to establish the interven- 
tion of the senses in hallucinations; once again, according to 
our view, in the two kinds of hallucinations mentioned by Mons. 
Baillarger, there is only a difference in intensity and degree ; 
but viewed psychologically, the study of hallucinations termed 
psychical, which are almost entirely formed by perceptions of 
hearing, present several very important points of observation. 
To them, in fact, may be traced several singular conditions of 
the mystics. The Lettres Spirituelles sur V Oraison furnish us 
with useful information on this subject. They admit of intel- 
lectual and corporeal visions, internal and external voices and 
sentences, odors and tastes, which sometimes affect the mind, at 
others, the sensorial organs. Of the voices, some are intellectual, 
and created in the interior of the mind; others corporeal, and 
strike the external ears of the body. Thus the division proposed 
by Mons. Baillarger, does not, according to this, author, present 
anything new; it is that of mystic authors. He terms psychical 
hallucinations, visions and intellectual locutions; and psycho- 
sensorial hallucinations he terms visions and corporeal locutions. 
As proofs, in support of his opinion, this physician remarks that 
hallucinations, in dreams, are generally psychical ; no sensorial 
impression is preserved on awaking. At other times, on the 
contrary, the direction of the voice, and its strength, is recol- 
lected. A sensation of smoke, pressure, and blows remains. 
There are patients who hear a thought at a distance, and fre- 
quently assert that they can converse mentally with those who 
surround them. They answer questions, which they imagine to 
be addressed to them, without a single word having been uttered. 

* Michea, op. cit. p. 102, et seq. 
| Psycho-sensorial hallucination. 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 431 

Leuret relates, in his Fragmens Psychologiques sur la Folie, 
that Friar Gilles, disciple of Saint Francois, and Saint Louis 
the King, conversed a long time with extreme consolation of 
mind, and without the aid of words, which, says Friar Gilles, 
would more have impeded than assisted us, by reason of the 
sweet peace which our souls experienced. 

Patients of this class pretend that there are invisible interro- 
gators within them, who speak with them, in thought, mind to 
mind, by intuition, magnetism, and idea; they hear internal 
voices. On this subject, the very curious case of Noel, detailed 
by Cazauvielh, may be consulted.* 

An insane woman, in the Saltpe'triere, always replied to the 
questions addressed to her by Dr. Leuret; when the physician 
ceased speaking, she continued the conversation, and gave an- 
swers to fresh questions which she imagined were addressed to 
her, but which had no connection with each other. "To whom 
are you talking?" inquired Leuret; "I am not speaking to 
you." — "I hear," she replied, "your thoughts, and I do not 
know why." A reply exactly similar to that of the seer, Blake. 

The cases in which the hallucinated hear voices in the epigas- 
trium, and receive communications by a sixth sense, still appear 
to belong to the same class. Sometimes it is not in the epigas- 
trium alone that a part of their thoughts seem to dwell ; it 
appears to them that their entire minds are exercised on the 
point. Yan Helmont experienced this under the influence of 
the poisonous action of aconite. 

Finally, it is necessary to remark that patients sometimes use 
the word voice, for want of another expression, to convey their 
feelings. 

Independently of the phenomena peculiar to each sense, 
there exist others common to the whole group. 

General Symptoms. — In the study of hallucinations, a fact is 
revealed which appears specially to belong to insanity. The 
man who perceives the first dawnings of hallucination has often 
the power to conceal it; so that it is only when the evil has 
burst forth that he is constrained to acknowledge it. Psycho- 
logical researches of the highest interest might be made of the 
method in which a false idea, at first slight and fugitive, tra- 

* Du Suicide et de l'Alienation mentale dans les Campagnes, p. 16G. 



432 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

verses the brain like lightning, to reappear at some moment when 
least expected. It would be very curious to examine how this 
impalpable idea, whose existence is only indicated by the asso- 
ciations which it calls forth, is colored, pictured, and, finally, 
assumes a body, which places itself before its victim, and pur- 
sues him everywhere like his shadow. When the hallucination 
occurs in this manner, before insanity is discovered by parents 
or friends, who perceive no disorder either in words or actions, 
then, most frequently, a change is observed in the conduct and 
affections of the party attacked. Hallucinations may have no 
influence on the conduct, either because the individual is conscious 
of the morbid phenomena which he experiences, or that he does 
not allow his actions to be influenced by them. This state is 
sometimes greatly prolonged, and is in nowise incompatible 
with the free exercise of reason. 

When the sufferer has once yielded to the power of the hal- 
lucination, his conviction in its reality is profound ; nothing can 
persuade him that it is a sensorial error. Some cases, indeed, 
are quoted in contradiction of this doctrine ; but, whilst we ad- 
mit such, we look on them as exceptions. It is to the firm 
persuasion which the hallucinated have of the existence of their 
visions, that the heroic patience with which sorcerers supported 
the tortures imposed by their ignorant judges must be attri- 
buted. The gift once accepted, it was to them what the philo- 
sophic idea was to Savanarole, Campanella, Yanini, and so 
many others who died in its defence on the scaffold. Perhaps, 
also, this deep conviction may be attributed to the remark they 
would naturally make, that they could judge of real objects as 
correctly as other men. This rule is not without exception, for 
there are some hallucinated persons who are conscious that they 
are delirious, and are aware that their sensations are false, and 
this conviction is even mingled in the hallucinations of their 
dreams. 

The hallucination which, under some circumstances, has shown 
itself as a predominant symptom, may be marked or enfeebled 
by other forms of mental alienation, or may reappear, and exist 
after the termination of the malady. 

One of the most decisive symptoms is to see a patient in the 
midst of a walk, or an animated conversation, suddenly stop, 
listen, even move aside to reply to the voice which questions 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 433 

him, to look at the object presented, to inhale odors, taste food, 
or become irritated by blows. Whilst I am writing, I observe 
one who has kept silence for two years, but whose pantomime is 
most expressive ; he questions, replies, accuses, defends himself, 
and addresses reproaches. His conversation with imaginary 
beings are very frequent. Esquirol suggested that these symp- 
toms may be noticed in all insane persons ; but, he adds, that 
individuals who, prior to the malady, were ruled by passion or 
exposed to powerful struggles of mind, are more liable to them 
than others, above all if they have applied to abstruse and 
speculative studies. We see patients daily who gesticulate, talk 
with imaginary beings, and appear very much absorbed in lis- 
tening to them, so that this disposition appears to us rather 
applicable to the major part of the hallucinated, than to a par- 
ticular section. 

The different forms of alienation impress their character on 
hallucinations. In lypemania, the apparitions, voices, odors, 
etc., are most usually those of wretched-looking figures, mon- 
sters, menacing words, which excite to evil, and mephitic ema- 
nations. If the insanity leans particularly towards religious 
subjects, then the patients see devils or angels. In erotomania, 
they are handsome youths or beautiful girls. When suicidal 
and homicidal monomania prevail, they then hear voices exciting 
them either to kill themselves or others. In general, the hallu- 
cinations of monomania vary but little, and are observed long 
after the outbreak of the malady. In the melancholy form, the 
cerebral disorder sometimes commences with an hallucination, 
but most frequently the monomania is developed by a passion, 
an exclusive idea to which hallucination unites itself; and results 
in a personification of that idea which augments still more the 
conviction of the alienated. In stupidity, hallucination is pre- 
monitory, and frequently accompanied by mental alienation. 

Hallucinations are also of frequent occurrence in mania ; but 
they are not so fixed as in the preceding kind. They vary with 
the ideas of the maniac, or if they appear beneath the torrent 
of ideas and of sensations which his brain continually creates, 
they are weakened, or at least in a great degree masked. " Hal- 
lucinations," says M. Aubanel, "sometimes announce the com- 
mencement of mania; they are fugitive, numerous, and capri- 
cious ; much more frequently, maniacal delirium gives rise to 
28 



434 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

hallucinations, which in mania are sometimes the last symptom. 
The patient is calm and rational, jet he hears voices. They 
may continue for several days in individuals whose reason is 
entirely restored. Hallucinations are less common with maniacs 
than illusions of the senses. This sensorial aberration explains 
why certain maniacs eat filth, and resist intense cold, etc." 

Hallucinations may exist with acute dementia, but they are 
rare and slight. Dementia appears less favorable to their ex- 
istence and duration than the two preceding forms. In fact, it 
seems that hallucinations, being occasioned by an exaltation of 
the faculties, can only be transitory in the demented. This 
theory is not entirely supported by observation. We have already 
remarked that many hallucinations in this kind of madness have 
been described, the degrees of which are infinite, and present, 
moreover, two important varieties — monomaniac and maniac de- 
mentia. In paralytic dementia, these false sensations are rare; 
and authors have asserted that they never occur but in the first 
period of that disease. " Never" is a word no truer in medicine 
than in politics. For twelve months I attended a paralytic 
patient, who hardly spoke, could scarcely walk, and yet who fre- 
quently saw a shark ready to devour him. When his terror 
reached its climax, his tongue was loosened, he uttered terrible 
shrieks whilst speaking of the shark, threw himself back, and 
would have leaped out of bed, if his strength had permitted it. 

Esquirol says that hallucinations are usually the lot of weak 
minds. Certainly, errors of sensation are remarked in indi- 
viduals of very ordinary intellect, but they are equally observed 
in men of highly cultivated minds. Amongst the hundreds of 
insane who have come under our notice since we first attended 
to this branch of pathology, these two classes have been pretty 
equal in number ; and it has long since been remarked that men 
the most celebrated for capacity, depth of reasoning, and 
strength of mind were not exempt from this symptom. The 
Lives of Plutarch, in which he speaks of the phantoms of Bru- 
tus, Dion, Cassius, etc., refute this opinion. 

There is one symptom of hallucination of high interest, on 
account of the serious consequences that may result from it. 
Apparitions and voices often act only negatively on the insane ; 
but they are also frequently the origin, by their counsels, 
menaces, and the terror they inspire, of strange actions, and 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 435 

singular and sudden resolutions. Thus the afflicted of this 
class prostrate themselves on the ground, or throw their arms 
around the neck of some person because God has commanded 
them to embrace him, offer insults, utter sharp words, challenge, 
strike, and wound, or fixedly look on the sky, the sun, etc. 
These acts may have dangerous consequences, and lead to sui- 
cide, theft, murder, or arson. 

These hallucinists give no truce to those whom the creations 
of their brain have once marked out for destruction. A man de- 
stroyed his child, because he continually heard an angel com- 
manding him to repeat the sacrifice of Abraham. " An insane 
person of our establishment," says M. Guislain, "asserts that 
invisible persons speak to him; some accuse him of murder, and 
announce the death of his mother, whilst others defend him. 
Happily, the patient is perfectly aware of his condition, and 
speaks of the strangeness of his ideas, for which he cannot 
account." 

A deranged man hears a voice, which he obeys, ordering him 
to mutilate himself; and a girl obeys a voice which commands 
her to murder her child. 

We cannot too much insist on the frequency of hallucinations 
which make the alienated believe that they are abused, mocked, 
and threatened. " They are incessantly calling me thief, assas- 
sin," said an hallucinated person to me one day. "Who calls 
you so?" " They." But, like the greater number of those 
belonging to this class, he could not point out any one. Some 
hear agreeable words, conformable to their wishes ; others hear 
menacing language. A young English lady converses every 
day with several of her countrywomen. Madame C. has long 
conversations with the angel Raphael. Numa talked with the 
nymph Egeria, Mohammed with the angel Gabriel, Luther with 
the devil, Charles IX. heard in the night the shrieks of the 
victims of St. Bartholomew. An old musician was constantly 
surrounded by the harmony of instruments. 

The circulating and digestive functions, sleep, and secretions, 
present changes which should be noticed. Messrs. Leuret and 
Mitivie have described, in their pamphlet on The Rapid Pulse 
of the Alienated, that under this form of delirium the greatest 
disorder in the circulation was observable. In fifty cases, they 
have reckoned ninety -five pulsations in the minute. Does this 



436 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

quickness of the pulse belong to diseases of the heart, which 
are, according to Messrs. Nasse and Foville, very common with 
the alienated ? Might it not also be the result of sleeplessness, 
so usual a symptom, or to the agitation caused by visions and 
voices, constant incitements to anger, rage, vociferations, or other 
kinds of emotion? 

At first the digestive organs may be deranged, when cepha- 
lalgia and fever exist ; but they are chiefly so affected when the 
idea of the hallucinated person is of a mournful character, when 
he fears the agents of public justice, and gendarmes, and is 
constantly beset by constables, or when he refuses food; the 
result of these prolonged fastings is manifested by serious dis- 
orders in the stomach and intestines. Constipation exists as in 
madness. The fear of poison acts equally in impairing the diges- 
tive organs. 

The sleep of the hallucinated is generally short, and almost 
always disturbed. Uneasiness and the distress which many 
persons feel in the dark, are greatly increased by apparitions. 
When these are of a terrible character, and the voices are 
threatening, the sufferers cannot enjoy a moment of repose ; 
they shriek, fight, and exhibit evidences of a fearful conflict. 
When the cries of an insane person are heard in the silence of 
the night, it is certain that they are visited by hallucinations. 

Disordered secretions offer nothing particular ; occurring as 
they do in mental maladies, without being combined with hallu- 
cinations, they may be referred to those kinds of diseases. 

Inquiries have latterly been instituted as to the time most 
favorable for the existence of hallucinations. Observation proves 
them to be most common in the evening, at night, and on going 
to rest, and that they obey a natural law, by which mournful 
ideas, uneasiness, fear, and terror are increased by solitude and 
darkness. But, although the greater number of hallucinations 
take place at night, many likewise occur during the day. We 
subjoin our observations on 144 cases. 

62 times hallucinations occurred at night, 

50 " " " during the day, 

32 " " " by day and night. 

The nature of the hallucinations does not appear especially to 
influence the period of their appearing. 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 437 

It has, however, been noticed that some kinds of hallucina- 
tions appear indifferently day and night, asleep or awake, whilst 
others only come in the night. 

M. Baillarger, in a memoir presented to the Royal Academy 
of Medicine,* entered into more circumstantial details, which 
we proceed to quote. Many of his deductions are verified by 
cases contained in this work. 

1. The transition from sleep to waking, and from waking to 
sleep, exerts a positive influence on the production of hallucina- 
tions on subjects predisposed to insanity, previous to, in the 
commencement of, and during the progress of this malady.f 

2. The mere act of lowering the eyelids is sufficient with some 
subjects, and even during their waking hours, to produce hallu- 
cinations of sight. 

3. Hallucinations occurring in the intermediate state between 
waking and sleeping, howsoever short of duration, become most 
usually continued, and excite delirium. 

4. Madness, in subjects already attacked by hallucinations 
at the moment of sleep, is quickly, and from its commencement, 
characterized by hallucinations. 

5. Hallucinations occurring whilst awake, frequently become 
stronger at the moments of falling asleep and of awaking. 

6. A fit of mania may follow immediately, and from the first 
access, hallucinations produced at the moment of falling asleep 
and of awaking. 

7. Hallucinations of one sense occurring during waking hours, 
those of another sense may be produced at the moment of fall- 
ing asleep. 

8. The transition from waking to sleeping has much greater 
influence on the production of hallucinations, than the transition 
from sleeping to waking. 

9. It is frequently after the suppression of a hemorrhage 
which has produced symptoms of congestion towards the head, 
that hallucinations have been produced at the moment of sleep. 

10. The influence of the transition from waking to sleeping 
in the production of hallucinations, proves that at least in cer- 

* Seance du 24 Mai, 1842. Memoires de TAcademie Koyale de Medecine, 
t. xii. p. 476. 

f This fact has already been noticed by Meister, in his Lettre sur l'lma- 
gination. 



438 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

tain cases, it is a phenomenon purely physical, and demands 
purely physical treatment. 

11. Hallucinations occurring in the intermediate state be- 
tween waking and sleeping, above all in subjects predisposed to 
insanity, or who have already been deranged, are often the 
indications of impending delirium. 

12. Hallucinations which precede sleep, and from their first 
appearance continue during several hours, are a cause of tran- 
sient madness ; and may excuse acts committed during the night 
by a subject who on the following day will be of perfectly sound 
mind. 

Hallucinations in Dreams. — All the symptoms which we have 
enumerated may be reproduced in dreams ; but, by reason of the 
nature of the impressions, they are often less vivid. False 
sensations do not always cease immediately on awaking in sane 
individuals, only they disappear in a longer or shorter time, 
whilst with deranged persons they continue. 

The action of thought may be pursued in dreams, and events 
long passed be reproduced, works may be completed, and new 
combinations take place. The hallucination of a dream possesses 
at times a more astonishing character, since it appears to an- 
nounce an event which is passing at the moment ; the best 
explanation which can be given of this phenomenon is, that the 
preoccupations of the day have not been interrupted by sleep. 

Hallucinations in dreams are often characterized by the pre- 
sence of an incubus. This phenomenon was formerly very com- 
mon in nocturnal hallucinations. 

The hallucinations of sorcerers, in the Middle Ages, were very 
often universal ; they saw, heard, felt, smelt, and tasted in com- 
mon. This symptom also belongs to deranged and even sane 
persons, but is much less frequent. A more common event is 
to hear madmen reason during the day in accordance with their 
nightly hallucinations. 

Finally, there are cases of somnambulism which present hal- 
lucinations similar to those of dreams. Many observations in 
these two classes prove that the will of man may be perverted, 
and he may be led into actions involving serious responsibility. 

Symptoms of Illusions. — The symptomatology of illusions is 

* Baillarger, op. cit. t. 12, p. 476. 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 439 

so closely allied to that of hallucinations, as to need only a sum- 
mary notice. The series of phenomena (called sensorial and in- 
tellectual) of hallucinations will bear the same explanation. The 
essential characteristic is the transformation which external 
objects, or those which exist out of the brain, undergo. A 
stranger may be transformed into a friend, a relative, a hus- 
band; or, a woman may become a man. The persons of their 
fellow-patients are altered to those of other individuals. One 
person, on looking at himself in a mirror, was so strongly agi- 
tated that he rushed on his keeper and stabbed him with a knife. 
A descendant of the great Reformer, whom we attended, uttered 
a cry of horror; she had just seen her son in the glass, fright- 
fully altered ; this illusion was caused by the sight of herself. 
King Theodoric experienced the most bitter remorse at the 
sight of a fish that was served at table, which appeared to him 
to be the head of the Senator Symmachus, whom he had con- 
demned to death. 

The greatest variety of symptoms are produced by illusions ; 
thus, some persons believe they have the head of a bird or a 
horse, or an extremely long nose, or one which keeps constantly 
lengthening, or a body made of wax; others are persuaded that 
they increase or shrink, or fly through air. Many declare 
themselves changed into dogs, cats, wolves, and devils. The 
British Review mentions the case of a man who believed he was 
changed into a teapot. Van Beerle, convinced that he was made 
of butter, refused to approach the fire, lest he should melt, and 
the idea caused him to throw himself into a well. 

A stone, a tree, a piece of tapestry are metamorphosed into 
frightful apparitions. The forest- trees people the country with 
phantoms; clouds often become armies engaged in battle, or 
angels, who come to console mortals. Spectres wander at night 
amongst the tombs. 

Illusions of hearing are no less frequent. The whistling of 
the winds become sighs or menacing voices. The dash of the 
waves bear with them the last cries of the shipwrecked mariners. 
Bessus seized his sword and killed the swallows that made a nest 
in his room. "See these birds," said he, angrily, "they accuse 
me of having killed my father !" of which crime, history informs 
us, he was subsequently convicted. 

Illusions of touch are no less remarkable than those of the 



440 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

other senses. Some insane persons, whose skin does not pro- 
perly performs its functions, affirm, on the slightest touch, that 
they are beaten, and being murdered ; others having cutaneous 
diseases, feel insects and spiders running over them. Esquirol 
mentions an officer who frequently uttered loud cries, and ap- 
peared to drive off menacing objects; it was discovered that he 
took each blade of straw for the beaks of birds of prey, which 
were wounding him. 

Sometimes the symptoms are connected with the internal 
organs; the sufferers feel insects moving in different parts of 
the brain, snakes gnawing the stomach, and frogs and toads 
moving in the abdomen. One young lady was certain that a 
worm was devouring her skull. A hypochondriac, under the 
care of Mons. Rayer, felt a large and a small worm alternately 
moving up and down the oesophagus and stomach. Atrophy 
of the spinal marrow belongs to the same class. It has been 
asserted that hallucinations, relating to visceral sensations, 
were very often combined with lesion of the organs, whilst this 
morbid disposition was very rare in illusions ; the distinction 
appears to us of minor importance. A general, who was sub- 
ject to rheumatism in the knee, seized the affected part with one 
hand, whilst with the other he dealt heavy blows on it, repeat- 
ing: "Ah, rascal, you will not go, then!" He imagined his 
knee to be a thief. 

Esquirol ranks ail the phenomena of sexual intercourse 
amongst illusions of touch. But hallucination must also have 
existed, since the diseased person was conscious of a corporeal 
presence. 

The history of incubes and succubes leaves this point unques- 
tionable. The history of the Middle Ages gives proof of the 
number of unfortunates, who, under the influence of this variety 
of demonomania (hallucinations of the organs of generation), 
confessed themselves to have had, during a series of years, com- 
merce with the devil, etc. 

It is very common for insane females to imagine themselves 
outraged by the other sex ; we rarely meet with examples of 
this class of symptoms in men. 

In common with the other senses, that of smell is a cause of 
error to the insane ; many find a bad taste in their food because 
their digestive functions are deranged, and the mucus of the 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 441 

mouth is dry and arid, and they reject nourishment under the 
impression that they are going to be poisoned. 

We have now analyzed, with the greatest possible care, the 
physiological phenomena of hallucination ; it remains to glance 
on its intellectual mechanism, and on the conditions most favor- 
able for its production. 

Esquirol, swayed by the sensual philosophy in the midst of 
which he was educated, saw in hallucinations only recollections, 
associated by the force of imagination. Ideas passing through 
the senses, the brain could not imagine any sensible form the 
model of which had not been previously recognized. 

"It would take too long a time," said M. de Chambre, "to 
deduce here the theoretic motives or experiences which do not 
permit us to recognize the limits imposed on the evolutions of 
thought, even in delirium. We will content ourselves with one 
reservation, convinced as we are that the imagination of the 
hallucinated frequently oversteps the circlet of memory to act 
on its own account." 

M. Baillarger, who has carefully studied the conditions favor- 
able to the production of hallucinations (psycho-sensorial), has 
placed them under three principal heads : — 

1st. The involuntary exercise of memory and imagination ; 

2d. Suspension of external impressions ; 

3d. Internal excitation of the sensorial organs. 

As we have discussed in another chapter the value of the 
opinion of this author on the slackening of attention as very 
much adapted to the production of hallucinations, we will not 
repeat it. It is sufficient to recollect that if in reverie, aliena- 
tion, the intermediate state between waking and sleeping, and the 
state of melancholy with stupor, many facts lean to support this 
theory, yet there are others, equally conclusive, which place be- 
yond doubt the influence of will and attention in the development 
of hallucinations. Thus we persist in saying that this pheno- 
menon may occur in the highest degree of meditation, when it 
is, so to speak, the perfection of a fixed idea. This point ap- 
pears to us undeniable, as instanced in many celebrated persons, 
who could reproduce hallucinations at will. It is also the opin- 
ion of Burdach, who says : "Visions may occur during the clay, 
when the mind is concentrated on one idea and detached from 



442 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

the external world, as happens in ecstasy." Raphael, in allud- 
ing to his celebrated picture of the Transfiguration says, that 
during its progress he might have been taken for a maniac en- 
thusiast ; he forgot his identity, and the scene appeared to pass 
before him. 

The same objection may be made to the suspension of exter- 
nal impressions ; if in many cases it exists, in an equal number 
it is missing. We attend two ladies, who, with the excep- 
tion of their hallucinations, are perfectly rational ; the one hears 
voices which suggest evil thoughts ; these voices continue their 
whisperings, notwithstanding needle-work, amusement, or con- 
versation, in which she joins with pleasure. When questioned 
as to these voices, she replies: "My conviction in their exist- 
ence is as strong as yours in your sensations." The other is a 
young lady who, in the midst of conversation or of her work, 
stops suddenly to gaze into the air. To any interrogations, she 
calmly replies: "I am looking at the snow which is falling from 
the ceiling," or, " the wall has just opened to let several men pass 
through." These visions do not at all prevent her taking part 
in all that passes in the parlor, or in making remarks on the 
conversation and works of other ladies. In neither of these 
cases is there any symptom of reverie or forgetfulness of the ex- 
ternal world ; nor does speaking to them suspend the hallucina- 
tions. The scholar, mentioned by M. Baillarger, appears to us 
a powerful example against the suspension of external impres- 
sions. We cannot then say that this is a general disposition of 
mind. If, however, the relaxation of attention be favorable to the 
production of hallucinations, how is it that when this faculty is 
strongly excited by the contemplation of the vision, it still con- 
tinues, and even for a considerable time, although with a con- 
sciousness of its falsity, as the cases of Nicolai and Bostock 
evince? 

A last condition necessary to the production of hallucination, 
consists in an excitation extended to one or several of the sen- 
sorial organs, at least in their intra-cerebrai portions. As a 
proof in support of this, we may observe that persons in the 
habit of using a microscope, often see suddenly the object which 
they have been examining at intervals, for several hours after 
they have ceased their observations. 

In bringing to a close that which relates to the physiology of 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 443 

hallucinations, we must draw attention to a disposition of mind 
to which the name of hallucinatory condition has been given, and 
which, independently of hallucinations, is characterized : 1st. 
By loss of consciousness of time, place, and surrounding objects; 
2d. By an entirely involuntary exercise of memory and imagina- 
tion. This is the aparte of Esquirol, which is likewise observed 
in the most rational men who are absorbed by some deep medi- 
tation.* The involuntary exercise of the faculties does not only 
accompany hallucinations, it often precedes them; forming, as it 
were, their precursor. The state of hallucination is of variable 
duration ; it may last for several hours, or only for a few 
seconds. 

Recapitulation. — The physiology of hallucinations offers 
great difficulties, for which reason they have been considered 
inseparable from insanity. Hallucination has been described by 
several authors as composed of two elements, psychical and sen- 
sorial; the fact appears unfavorable to the theory of the interven- 
tion of the senses. The sensorial action appealed to by Burdach 
and Mtiller, is no more real than is the cerebral pain belonging 
to a long amputated member. If sensation exists in the organ, 
how can hallucination of the blind and deaf be explained ? If 
even the phenomenon passes solely in a certain portion of the 
brain, it cannot, for that reason, have any need of the sensorial 
organ. 

But even if we reject the intervention of the senses, the divi- 
sion of hallucinations into psycho- sensorial and psychical is no 
less useful in the classification of the phenomena. The degree 
of intensity appears to us the best illustration of this classi- 
fication. 

This decomposition of the elements of hallucination naturally 
leads to the study of the intellectual and sensorial phenomena. 
Amongst the intellectual phenomena of hallucinations of hear- 
ing, the frequency of which places them in the foremost rank, 
we must range different kinds of noises, the repetition of some 
particular word or words, the reproduction of the habitual pre- 
occupation of mind in the individual. Even when hallucinations 
present some extraordinary feature, they may be traced to read- 
ing, conversation, and recollections. There are, however, a 

* Des Maladies Mentales, Paris, 1838. 



444 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

certain number of visions which have no connection with occu- 
pations, thoughts, or habitual works. 

Hallucinations may come from without ; they are more fre- 
quently ascribed to invisible beings, who speak in the second or 
third person, or to indeterminate persons, as they, them. The 
number of interlocutors may be considerable. 

An interesting phenomenon in reference to psychology, is 
that which excites a belief in the existence of two individuals, 
or two principles in the same person ; the one inciting to evil, 
the other urging to good. 

In general, hallucinations are not under the control of the 
will. Sometimes, however, they are so ; which is a powerful 
argument against the relaxation of attention; they disappear or 
continue, notwithstanding a desire to the contrary. The most 
powerful concentration of thought cannot sometimes reproduce 
an hallucination which, a few moments previously, has appeared 
uncalled for. 

When hallucinations of hearing are exhibited in several lan- 
guages spoken by the person affected, the least distinct are 
those of the language with which he is the least familiar. 

The intellectual faculties may receive a greater development 
in hallucinations; this symptom particularly has been already 
proved ; it accounts for the extraordinary influence which certain 
men have exercised on their fellow-creatures, with the reserva- 
tion, however, that these hallucinations are compatible with 
reason. 

Intellectual hallucinations of hearing may be the reproduction 
of vivid anterior sensations. 

The sensorial phenomena of hallucinations of hearing are 
characterized by sounds more or less solemn. They most usu- 
ally resemble murmurings and whisperings. The sounds may 
suddenly cease and conversations take place mentally. 

Extraordinary noises, and revelations from the other world, 
belong to hallucinations of hearing. 

The voices may be very near, or heard at a distance, and in 
different directions, or they may consist of noises of various 
kinds. 

Hallucinations sometimes occur only on one side. The hallu- 
cinated hear with but one ear, or see with but one eye ; these 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 445 

are the double hallucinations {hallucinations dedoublees) of Mr. 
Michea. 

Hallucinations of hearing, instead of being external, become 
internal. 

The loss of the senses is no obstacle to the manifestation of 
hallucinations. 

Hallucinations of sight are very usual with persons of sound 
mind, whilst those of hearing are much more common with the 
deranged. 

Amongst the intellectual phenomena of hallucinations of 
sight, may be noticed the reproduction for a greater or less time 
of an object always the same, which afterwards assumes a great 
variety of changes. 

Hallucinations of sight have often an intimate relation with 
actual preoccupation of mind ; at other times, they are the re- 
production of vivid anterior sensations. 

Hallucinations of sight are generally formed by the most 
habitual ideas and occupations. In general, the image is entire, 
but sometimes a part only is developed ; for example, half of 
a body, a head, or an eye. It is probable that this difference 
in the representative sign depends on the mode of conception. 
Thus, when an idea has caused a deep impression, the image is 
reproduced entire, whilst the individual sees it imperfectly, or 
mistily, when the impression has been weak. Perhaps to this 
cause may be attributed the manner in which a number of the 
deranged speak of their hallucinations ; they have said, they 
have insulted me, and no other explanation can be obtained. 

The sensorial phenomena of hallucinations of sight form a 
more interesting study than those of hearing. From their 
commencement, they have emotion, and varieties of size, and 
form. 

Hallucinations, in general, appear suddenly ; they may dis- 
appear in like manner, remain a certain time, or decrease gra- 
dually. In some cases, hallucinations are developed at the same 
time with derangement, and cease with it. 

Hallucinations occur generally in the night, or, at least, have 
more intensity at that period. They are also frequently noticed 
during the day, and in numerous cases continue both night and 
day. Closing the eyes often causes hallucinations to disappear; 
in some circumstances, the contrary effect is produced. 



446 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The images are opposite, and follow the directions of the 
eyes ; they may be at the side ; and are at times intercepted by 
opaque bodies. In general, fantastic images cover external 
objects, and conceal them from the sight. 

Hallucinations of smell, taste, and touch are simpler and 
more rare than those of hearing and of sight ; they reproduce 
almost exclusively sensorial impression, and are, moreover, 
extremely difficult to distinguish from illusions. To hallucina- 
tions of this nature must be referred those pestilential emana- 
tions from individuals, destroying everything around them. 

False perceptions of general sensibility, and especially those 
of hypochondriacs, may originally arise from the brain, and be 
only secondarily conveyed to an organ. 

Hallucinations are rarely confined to one sense, although one 
generally predominates. It would appear, according to Mons. 
Pressat, that false sensations succeed each other in regular 
order. 

Psychical hallucinations, which are almost exclusively consti- 
tuted of the perceptions of hearing, comprise intellectual visions, 
and the locutions and interior voices of mystics, which leave no 
sensorial impression on the mind. The hallucinists of this class, 
converse mentally, by thought, by idea, mind to mind, hear 
voices in the epigastrium, and receive communications by means 
of a sixth sense. 

Independently of hallucinations adapted to each sense, there 
are some common to the whole group. 

Hallucinations may exist, for a length of time, without affect- 
ing the reason ; but the struggle which the sufferer undergoes 
generally terminates by imparting a strangeness to his conduct. 

The steady belief of the hallucinated in the reality of their 
false sensations, explains the indomitable constancy of sorcerers 
in the midst of tortures. (Doubtless, a more or less decided 
anesthetic must be added.) 

Amongst the reasons for this conviction may be ranked the 
correct judgment of the sufferer in matters foreign to their 
delirium. Some, however, recognize the falsity of their sensa- 
tions. 

The nature of hallucinations is influenced by the different 
forms of insanity. 



PHYSIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF HALLUCINATIONS. 447 

All men may have hallucinations, the most exalted as well as 
the feeblest minds. 

The influence of hallucinations may lead to very serious 
results. 

Circulatory and digestive functions, sleep and the secretions, 
evince alterations. 

Certain periods are more favorable to the production of hal- 
lucinations ; such as the transition from sleep to waking, and 
from waking to sleep, evening, and night. Many hallucinations 
occur indifferently, however, by night or day. 

In the hallucinations of dreams, all the false sensations may 
be felt which are observed in waking. 

The labor of thought may be continued in dreams, which 
explains many curious cases which have been described. 

The accounts given by sorcerers of the mysteries of the Sab- 
bath, were only hallucinations occurring in dreams. 

One peculiarity noticed in some deranged persons is, that 
their conduct during the day is guided by the false sensorial 
impressions of the night. 

The hallucinations of somnambulism offer a great resemblance 
to those of dreams ; they may also occasion very reprehensible 
acts. 

Illusions may exhibit all the sensorial and intellectual pheno- 
mena of hallucinations, which they frequently accompany; their 
essential characteristic is the transformation of external bodies, 
into fanciful conceptions. Deranged persons may also believe 
themselves to be the metamorphosed object. 

To hallucinations of touch may be ascribed the false sexual 
impressions of many of the insane, incubes and succubes, and 
all cases of this character with which the history of the Middle 
Ages teems. 

The intellectual mechanism of hallucinations may not be 
restricted to recollections associated by imagination; nothing, 
in fact, proves that this last faculty does not often overstep the 
circlet of memory to act on its own foundation. 

Three conditions appear to exert a great influence on the 
production of hallucinations; the involuntary exercise of me- 
mory and imagination, the suspension of external impressions, 
and the internal excitation of the sensorial organs. Relaxation 
of the mind, without doubt, favors the production of hallucina- 



448 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

tions, but it is no less certain that this phenomenon may take 
place in the highest degree of meditation; then occurs what has 
been noticed in certain states of the body, where two extremes 
occasion symptoms apparently identical. The same objections 
may be made to the suspension of external impressions; if 
in many cases they exist, in many others they are wanting. 

Finally, there is an hallucinatory state, which, independently 
of hallucinations, is characterized by a loss of the consciousness 
of time, of place, and of surrounding objects, by the involuntary 
exercise of memory and imagination. This aparte is also ob- 
servable in men absorbed by some profound meditation. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY. 

A priori, the production of hallucination not easily explained by an anatomical 
lesion — How account, by pathological anatomy, for the hallucinations of the 
child, the thinker, and the poet? — Intermittence another objection — Autopsy 
without characteristic anatomical disorders — The greater number of physicians 
do not believe, in the present state of science, in any special known alteration 
— The relation of lesions to hallucinations offers nothing positive — The brain 
is doubtless modified ; but its mode of change is entirely unknown — Recapitu- 
lation. 

A priori, it seems difficult to connect hallucinations with ana- 
tomical lesion. The transformation of an idea into an image, 
or rather its division (dedoublement), doubtless presents differ- 
ent appearances in the child, the rational man, the deranged 
person, the hysteric, and he who is a prey to fever, but it is no 
less the fundamental fact of hallucination. By what lesions 
can the false sensations of the child be explained, whose fear 
makes him see demons, assassins, and robbers — or those of the 
rational man, who sees before him villages, cities, and groups of 
men, without, however, being duped by these fantastic forms ? 
Must this psychological phenomenon be attributed to a few drops 
more or less of blood, to a nervous erethismus ? The same 
explanation is always given to a multitude of different diseases : 
" Doubtless it is a cerebral modification ;" but it is contrary to 
the simplest good sense to give a uniform explanation to symp- 
toms so varied and so numerous. 

Are solitary hallucinations identical in the alienated, the epi- 
leptic, the hypochondriac, and the furious madman? And how 
can we suppose them connected with an anatomical derangement, 
when we see them disappear suddenly, return at indefinite pe- 
riods, in the morning, the day, the evening, or the night ? The 
cerebral fibre is evidently affected to a certain degree in the 
formation of the idea ; but who has ever comprehended the 
29 



450 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

modification ? It may be anything excepting what it appears to 
the senses. 

When a man of genius has so concentrated all his faculties 
on one favorite thought that it takes a bodily form, do we know 
how this marvel is effected ? No more than we can understand 
the mechanism of thought. Thus, by reasoning, we arrive at 
the conclusion that there cannot be appreciable anatomical de- 
rangement in the case of hallucinations. 

Let us now see if cases of anatomical pathology resolve the 
question differently. 

Case CXLIX. On the first of August, 1839, a man was re- 
ceived in the hospital of the Hotel-Dieu, aged thirty-nine, a 
printer by trade, of ordinary height, a good and strong consti- 
tution, beard and hair black. He related that, seventeen days 
previously, he had been attacked in the street, about two in the 
morning, by several men, and thrown down ; and that, in falling, 
he got a wound on the upper part of the occipital region. This 
accident alarmed him greatly, and on the following night he 
opened his door under the impression that some one knocked. 
Soon afterwards, some armed men entered the room, who seized 
and ill-treated him. During the day he was tranquil, but this 
hallucination was reacted every night. This vision, however, 
was not the first that he had experienced ; for seven years he 
had been visited at times by similar ones, all occurring at night. 

On the day after his arrival, his countenance expressed nothing 
remarkable ; his mind was perfectly clear ; no heat in the skin, 
no fever ; all the functions acted well. On the posterior and 
superior portion of the head was a wound, which had injured 
the scalp, 15 lines long by 13 broad. 

Sweetened barley-water, castor-oil, 30 grammes. Diet. 

About eight at night the delirium returned, the patient arose, 
and we were obliged to put on him the strait waistcoat. He 
manifested much fear, spoke of the men who had come to seize 
him, and endeavored to take refuge behind the beds of the other 
patients, uttering cries of terror. At three in the morning, he 
had recovered his mind, replied to the questions addressed to 
him, and was aware that he was the sport of an illusion. (Bleed- 
ing in the foot, soluble tartar, 15 grammes, lemonade, diet.) 

All the symptoms of hallucination were reproduced in the 
night ; in the morning, he was more calm, and replied sensibly 



PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY. 451 

to the questions asked ; but there was a wildness in his look, 
and he soon endeavored to get free. (Sulphate of quinia.) No 
febrile symptoms. 

On the 5th, the violent delirium ceased ; but he still saw 
visions; from this time he sank, his features fell, he became 
pale and thin, and refused to eat. On the 11th he had vomit- 
ings, which nothing could check ; neither draughts, nor a blister 
on the epigastrium. On the 16th, the patient expired, at four 
in the morning. 

Autopsy on the 17th, 30 hours after death. — Head. The me- 
ninges, and particularly the pia mater, are injected, but are 
easily separated ; they have not contracted any adherence to 
the cortical substance. This, carefully examined, presents 
neither injection nor change of texture ; the convolutions are 
in a normal state. There is no serosity in the ventricles. The 
cerebellum has its natural consistence and color. The olfactory 
and auditory nerves require no notice. No serosity in the base. 
The surface of the stomach on a grayish base presents a very 
slight injection ; it is universally mammillated, with the exception 
of the great cul-de-sac. 

A slight arborescent injection is observable in the duodenum. 
The liver very large. The wound on the head healed; the bone 
uninjured. 

This case of hallucination, as simple as possible, does not pre- 
sent any anatomical lesion which can account for the disorder 
of the sensations, unless, indeed, we consider the injection of 
the meninges as a cause. It is, however, w r orthy of note that, 
for seven years, the patient had been subject to these visions, 
and that during this lapse of time an alteration could easily 
have been developed. 

This is not the only autopsy of the hallucinated which we 
have made ; in some cases we have discovered nothing ; in 
others, we have noticed injections, several times alterations in 
the meninges and the cerebral substance ; but, even in these 
cases, it has been impossible for us to discern the connection 
between the lesion and the disordered sensations experienced 
during life. 

This opinion is that of the immense majority of physicians 
who have devoted years to the study of autopsical researches. 
M. Lelut does not admit of any anatomical lesion in hallucina- 



452 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

tions. M. Calmeil agrees in this view of the subject. Leuret 
has formally protested against those who assign an appreciable 
material lesion to hallucinations. It may be generally asserted 
that the brain of an hallucinated person does not resemble, point 
for point, that of one exempt from hallucinations, but we cannot 
indicate wherein it differs. 

M. Aubanel, whose treatise proves him to have been a close 
observer, says : " In three subjects of whom he made post-mortem 
examinations, two of whom had hallucinations of sight, the 
other of hearing, he could not detect the slightest change of 
texture or color in the optic or auditory nerves." Farther on, 
he states : "I have made very numerous autopsies of the alien- 
ated in Bicetre. I have encountered multiplied alterations, 
but I have never established their connection with the pheno- 
mena that engage our attention, whether by reason of their 
nature, of their inconstancy and variety, or of the different 
affections which have existed. These alterations, moreover, 
did not always exist. There was nothing to prove that they 
were not old lesions." 

The treatise of M. Dupeyre* on some points relative to deli- 
rium tremens, contains nothing peculiar to hallucinations in the 
autopsies which are there described ; they are known lesions. 

Some localizers have attributed hallucinations to the irritation 
of a portion of the encephalus, but up to the present time, they 
cannot show either the situation or character of this lesion. 

A physician of note has found in hallucinations the nervous 
cords hard, yellowish, and withered ; and, proceeding higher, 
has found the cerebral portion, to which the nerve is attached, 
to exhibit more or less serious alterations ; he has especially 
noticed adherences of the fibres. When these facts shall have 
been published in all their details, they will attract the attention 
of men who are cultivating our science. But I fear that it is 
only a simple coincidence ; and it would require much more 
decided proofs to destroy the arguments which we have employed 
in the opening of this chapter, or to effect any alteration in 
the present state of science. We have frequently found the 
optic and acoustic nerves wasted and altered in their texture, 
without the individuals having hallucinations. As to lesions of 
the cerebellum, mentioned by the same author, it would appear 



PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY. 45o 

that he has himself observed them in deranged persons who 
were not hallucinated. 

Recapitulation. — Even if a particular lesion existed in 
hallucination, it still remains to discover its mode of action in 
converting an idea into an image, or rather in rendering visible 
its sensible sign. 

The same objection exists in describing the lesion which 
peoples the solitude of the child with phantoms, and that of the 
rational man with all kinds of images. 

Hallucinations vary according to cases, and the same lesion 
cannot apply to all. 

To explain hallucinations as caused by the presence of a little 
more or a little less blood, would be to remain still in the circle 
in which all cerebral diseases are at present clustered. 

The researches of pathological anatomy have not, up to the 
present time, furnished any positive data on the mode of lesion 
peculiar to hallucinations ; it is, nevertheless, that which reason- 
ing might conjecture. 

The facts collected by Mr. Foville are neither sufficiently 
numerous nor sufficiently well known to modify general opinion; 
we must, therefore, be content to wait until this gentleman has 
published his anatomico-pathological researches. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

PROGRESS — DURATION — DIAGNOSIS — PROGNOSIS. 

Progress and continuance — Hallucinations are irregular, remittent, sometimes 
constant — Causes which influence them in their progress — The peculiar form 
"which the madness assumes exercises an action on hallucinations — Intermit- 
tences — Periodical attacks. 

Duration — Exhibits great differences — Varies according to the character of the 
hallucination. 

Diagnosis — Hallucinations easily discovered when the patient speaks of them, 
sometimes impossible when he maintains silence — Signs by which they may 
be recognized — Different characteristics of nocturnal hallucinations, somnam- 
bulism and ecstasy — Difference between hallucinations and illusions — The forms 
of insanity may make the diagnosis uncertain. 

Prognosis — Varies according to the kind — The prognosis modified by the period 
— Different forms of alienation have a marked influence — Nervous diseases 
aggravated by hallucinations — Hallucinations of long endurance change their 
nature — Prognosis of simple and general hallucinations — Hallucinations 
acknowledged by the patients seldom serious — The prognosis more important 
in hypochondria, hysteria, epilepsy, and certain varieties of illusions. — Reca- 
pitulation. 

Hallucinations do not, in general, progress steadily ; they 
return at irregular intervals, as well in the day as at night, and 
present very marked remissions. These remissions happen 
particularly in the day, and their variable return appears to us 
a powerful argument against the existence of a durable lesion 
in the organ attached to the phenomenon. This rule is not, 
however, without exception; in melancholy alienation, when the 
patient thinks he has been arrested, menaced, or is alarmed by 
some frightful vision, and pursued by enemies, the remission is 
not always appreciable. The hallucinations lasts for an indefi- 
nite period. 

Hours of repose, distractions, and intellectual or manual 
occupations are sufficient to make hallucinations less sensible, 
and even sometimes to put an entire stop to them. 

In a certain number of cases, the transition from waking to 



PROGRESS — DURATION — DIAGNOSIS— PROGNOSIS. 455 

sleep, and vice versa, has an influence on the production of 
hallucinations. 

Evening, darkness, and night favor the return of hallucina- 
tions, or augment their intensity. It is, in general, at night 
that the hallucinated are agitated, speak, sing, dispute, and 
shriek. 

The form of insanity exercises an influence on the progress 
of hallucinations. Their type presents differences, according 
to which they exist with certain varieties of monomania, with 
mania and dementia. Sometimes even the type may disappear, 
masked hy the alienation. 

Intermittence has often been observed in hallucinations, and 
their suspension characterized by considerable lucid intervals. 

The seasons have not offered any effect worthy of note. 

Hallucinations having been constant, may become remittent 
or intermittent. Thus, it happens that an insane person is 
tormented night and day by a vision or a voice. After awhile 
these phenomena cease by day, and only occur at night. With 
many, the exacerbation is more powerful night and morning. 
At other times, hallucinations, having been intermittent and 
remittent, become constant. 

Periodical returns have been proved in some cases, without 
more explanation being possible than is given to fevers. 

The duration of hallucinations presents great variety; we 
have seen some disappear in a few hours, and others last for 
years. Their duration is often long when attached to chronic 
insanity. 

When hallucination is manifested suddenly with insanity, it 
may quickly cease. A young lady became suddenly deranged 
in consequence of a disappointment in love; she thought her 
lover was near to her, and spoke to him constantly. In three 
days she became aware of her mistake. A man habituated to 
drinking was seized with furious delirium, and endeavored to 
kill two men who were on the top of the wall menacing him. Ten 
days afterwards he acknowledged that he had been crazy, but 
coolly affirmed his conviction that the two men had been in 
his room. In a month afterwards, he allowed that he had 
been strangely deceived. Hallucination may last but a few 
hours. A young man, seized with one of those sudden frenzies 
which a shock or change of place suffices to cure, said, on en- 



456 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

tering my establishment: "Who is that woman dressed in white, 
that walks before me?" He asked the same question several 
times, but in two hours spoke no more of it. 

In mania and acute delirium, hallucinations may be very 
fugitive. 

In gloomy monomania, on the contrary, and in demonomania, 
their persistency is great. In general, their existence is but 
fleeting in advanced and senile dementia, and, in general para- 
lysis with dementia. 

When hallucinations have existed for several months, and still 
more, for several years, in monomania, mania, and dementia in 
its first stage, they may be prolonged for a length of time. I 
have seen deranged persons who have had hallucinations for 
ten, fifteen, and twenty years. Examples have occurred, where 
they have existed almost a lifetime. 

The diagnosis of hallucinations appears, at the first glance, to 
present no difficulty. It seems, in fact, impossible to misappre- 
hend the acts of a man who sees figures invisible to all others, 
and hears voices no one else can hear. But such is not always 
the case ; sometimes the hallucinated is conscious that his sen- 
sations are false ; he therefore carefully conceals them. This 
state may last for a long time, without any indication of its ex- 
istence. At other times, a man acts irrationally ; but he says 
nothing of it ; the greatest mystery seems to pervade his con- 
duct; and years may pass without the enigma being solved. 
Dr. Marc has related a curious case, and he judiciously observes, 
that in this instance the more unique and eccentric the actions 
appear, the more they may be presumed to be caused by hallu- 
cinations. 

It is necessary, on being consulted in a case of medical juris- 
prudence, for the purpose of ascertaining if hallucination exists, 
to take account of antecedents, to examine actual symptoms, 
and, above all, to take into consideration the physiognomy of the 
person under examination. The observations required are of 
three orders : discourse, actions, and writings. If the person 
speaks of angels, devils, and animals which he has seen, and 
these visions are connected with his habitual ideas ; if they occur 
at irregular hours of the day and night, suddenly; if the voices 
have uttered nonsense, abuse, or menace, and these relations are 
made incoherently, it is almost certain that the individual has 



PROGRESS — DURATION — DIAGNOSIS — PROGNOSIS. 457 

hallucinations of sight and hearing. This opinion presents 
greater force when the person stops, is angry and furious because 
the voices insult him, or is constantly moving about to avoid 
their menaces. The refusal of food under pretext that it is 
poisoned, the fear of entering a room because men are concealed 
there, the action of looking under beds, up the chimney, and 
disarranging all the bedclothes to seek for them, are so many 
proofs of disease. Finally, letters, memoranda, and notes dis- 
pel all doubts; for, howsoever plausible the reasons alleged may 
be in his favor, insanity will soon betray itself in these. This 
examination is no less useful in medico-legal estimates, when the 
individual is suspected of simulating madness. 

We have endeavored, in the course of this work, to prove that 
dreams, somnambulism, and ecstasy had numerous points of 
resemblance with hallucinations, but we have never professed 
that they were identical ; this distinction is important, and we 
invite attention to it. Their different characteristics have been 
described. Thus, nocturnal hallucinations could not be con- 
founded with dreams, inasmuch as they make a deep impression 
on the mind, and remain clearly engraven on the memory. 
"With the dreamer," says Esquirol, "waking ideas are con- 
tinued during sleep, whilst the hallucinist completes (I should 
prefer to say continues) his dream when almost entirely awake. 
Hallucinists differ from somnambulists in this respect, that in 
the greater number of cases they retain a faithful remembrance 
of their sensations, whilst somnambulists recollect nothing. This 
is, however, not so constant a fact as has been stated; we have 
mentioned proofs to the contrary. 

The nature of ecstasy is not that of hallucination, but they 
follow each other as the shadow follows the substance. In 
ecstasy, the nervous influence is concentrated on a single point ; 
and all the functions, excepting imagination, are suspended. 
In the hallucinated, on the contrary, all the functions are accom- 
plished ; the augmented action of the centre of sensibility is 
sufficient.* These differences do not strike us to be so decided 
as some pretend ; for it appears to us that the hallucinated per- 
son is under the influence of strong preoccupation, and that his 
imagination is also in action. 

* Monneret and Fleury, Compendium de Medecine Pratique, art. Folie. 



458 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Illusion, separated by some writers from hallucination, and 
united to it by others, although having a common centre and 
numerous points of contact, should not, it appears to us, be 
confounded. Friedreich, M. Aubanel, and others, who would 
reduce them to one class, say, in support of this opinion, that 
hallucinations and illusions originate in the same spot, the brain ; 
that they are constantly changing from the one to the other ; 
and that hallucinations of touch, taste, and smell could not, in 
most cases, be distinguished from illusions of the same senses. 
These statements are much more specious than real; because 
hypochondria and hysteria have each their origin in the brain, 
does it follow that they are alike, as even esteemed authors have 
maintained ? M. Dubois, of Amiens, in his excellent work, has 
clearly resolved the question. Their transformation into each 
other is no more a reason for confounding them, than the pas- 
sage from monomania to mania, and sometimes from dementia 
(although much more rarely), into these two forms, is sufficient 
to cause these three kinds to be described under the generic 
name of insanity. The difficulty of distinguishing them in the 
three senses designated is real, but not insurmountable ; for in 
this case even, the difference may be established. Thus, in the 
case we are about to relate, the characters of hallucination are 
distinct, and it would be difficult to confound it with illusion. 

Case CL. Madame D., daughter of a celebrated physician, 
well educated, gifted with a sound judgment, a very good musi- 
cian, and never having had any disease in the ear, has, for 
many years, had an hallucination of hearing, which consists in 
the repetition of a musical phrase for several consecutive hours. 
This lady has frequently noted these musical airs, but has never 
found them worth the trouble of preserving. They are at times 
regular melodies, but presenting nothing original, and yet no- 
thing popularly known ; at other times they are only incoherent 
notes. 

This lady is conscious that she is the sport of an hallucination; 
she is no way influenced by it, but yet cannot rid herself of it. 
The musical airs having continued for a time, cease, to return 
at intervals. 

M. Meniere, to whom we are indebted for this case, has on 
several occasions examined the lady; he has not found any 
defect in the ear. In a word, the characteristic remains decided 



PEOGRESS — DURATION — DIAGNOSIS — PROGNOSIS. 459 

and pathognomonic, which, to our minds, irrevocably settles the 
question of the inutility of an external impression in hallucina- 
tion; whilst in illusion it is indispensable. There can be no 
illusion, without an image; whilst the blind and deaf have hal- 
lucinations. We might add that the conduct of the hallucinated 
may be consistent with reason, and that the false sensation may 
long exist unperceived, whilst illusion will not escape notice, 
and will finally place any one exhibiting its symptoms amongst 
the insane. 

The form of alienation may render its diagnosis uncertain. 
Thus, with maniacs, it is sometimes impossible to recognize the 
kind of hallucination, or to distinguish it from illusion, because 
the sensations of the patient are all internal. His actions can 
alone guide the judgment of the physician. 

Prognosis. — Hallucinations are regarded as a very unfavor- 
able sign in insanity; those which are material and simple 
offer, it is said, a less chance of cure than those which arise as 
a symptom of another form of delirium. These general princi- 
ples require some development. Solitary hallucinations, which 
appear suddenly in individuals who have no sign of insanity, 
are quickly cured; so it is with those consequent on the abuse 
of strong drink; they cease with the cause. Hallucinations 
dependent on a febrile state without mental alienation, pass 
away with the disease. Hallucinations occasioned by narcotic 
substances, are dispelled when the action of the substance 
ceases. 

The prognosis differs with mental diseases. In active and 
recent monomania, the hallucinations have but slight influence; 
it is not so in melancholy monomania, especially if characterized 
by the idea of a bad action, the fear of damnation, or any cause 
of alarm; they add to the evil, and often provoke to suicide. 

The hallucinations of mania may be rendered dangerous by 
the resolutions which they induce, often driving the alienated to 
inconsiderate acts ; so that a maniac, hearing a voice calling to 
him from the street, may throw himself out of the window. 
There is no doubt that suicide, in this kind of madness, has 
often been caused by hallucinations ; and when combined with 
illusion, as is often the case, the madman may become a homicide. 
At other times, he gives way to transports of blind rage ; tears, 
destroys, and knocks down any one who opposes him ; because he 



460 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

incessantly hears evil and taunting voices. The duration of 
hallucinations is generally short and fugitive in acute mania; 
and often, in chronic mania, they are as versatile as the ideas of 
the maniac. 

Puerperal mania may be combined with hallucinations ; but 
this species of madness being, in general, rapidly cured, the 
symptom is very unimportant. 

The hallucinations of acute dementia are rare and of little 
consequence. 

Hallucinations in dementia have but a relative influence ; 
they become weaker and disappear with the progression of the 
disease. It is, however, not unusual for hallucinations in maniac 
and monomaniac dementia to last for several years ; we have 
noticed them in cases of this character for six or seven years 
after their first appearance. Their importance in this form of 
alienation depends on the recrudescences, which give more inten- 
sity to hallucinations and aggravate the condition of the patient. 
They are sometimes a bad symptom when connected with 
mournful ideas, because they agitate the patient, disturb his 
repose, and deprive him of sleep. The hallucinations remarked 
in some cases of general paralysis with dementia, adds but little 
to the severity of the alienation, but they contribute to distress 
the sufferer, by giving fresh impetus to his deadened impres- 
sions. 

When hallucinations have existed for a great length of time, 
the prognostic becomes more serious, and the difficulty of eradi- 
cating them is increased. Whatever may have been their origin, 
they must necessarily have produced a modification in the cere- 
bral texture, a faulty direction of that organ ; and it is more 
difficult to discover a remedy, because the modification itself is 
entirely unknown to us. We do not dispute that hallucinations 
of long standing have been cured ; but these cases belong to 
the catalogue of chronic diseases, the cures of which are 
reported, but from which it is not possible to form a doctrine. 
We have read of more than twenty cases of persons who have 
been insane for seven, eight, ten, and fifteen years, who have 
been suddenly cured by a wound, a fall, or a sudden immersion. 
These are exceptional cases, which cannot serve as rules for con- 
duct. Their authenticity, however, prevents a too absolute 
assertion of the incurability of hallucinations of long existence. 



PROGRESS — DURATION — DIAGNOSIS — PROGNOSIS. 461 

The prolonged duration of hallucinations produces besides a 
psychological phenomenon which accounts for the difficulty of 
their cure. In fact, hallucinations having been fixed and dis- 
tinct for years, tends, by the constant repetition of the same 
act, to become confused and volatile, and to transform itself into 
another, or even to pass into a state of general hallucination. 

A simple hallucination is more readily cured than when it is 
combined with others. If an hallucination of all the senses 
occurs from the commencement, the prognosis is serious, because 
it announces a deep and intense cerebral disorder. 

When the hallucinated are conscious of the falsity of their 
impressions, the prognosis is unimportant ; the remark applies 
equally to those who, in giving credence to their hallucinations, 
do not act under their influence ; but when hallucinations are 
prolonged, and above all exist in individuals predisposed to 
madness, or of weak, superstitious, and ignorant minds, they are 
frequently of extreme tenacity. 

Hallucinations observable in hypochondria and epilepsy in- 
crease the severity of those diseases ; they are often dangerous 
in epilepsy, by the actions to which they excite the patient. 
Hallucinations combined with illusions of taste, touch, and 
smell are often very obstinate, particularly when the patients 
think that their food is poisoned, and that their death is being 
compassed by pestilential odors, etc. 

Recapitulation. — Progress and duration. Hallucinations 
may be remittent, irregular, diurnal, nocturnal, intermittent, or 
periodical. They are more rarely constant. 

Different causes may diminish the intensity of hallucinations, 
or even suspend them. 

The progress of hallucinations vary, according to the form or 
character of the madness. The same occurs with the type. 

The duration of hallucinations is very variable; some last 
only a few hours — others during a whole lifetime. 

The forms of insanity influence their duration. 

Diagnosis. — The difficulty of the diagnosis exists when the 
individuals keep silence. 

In a doubtful case, the conversations, actions, and writings 
must be examined. 

The characteristics of nocturnal hallucinations, somnambu- 
lism and ecstasy, differ from hallucinations. 



462 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Hallucinations are distinguished from illusions under certain 
relations. 

Hallucinations are sometimes difficult of discovery from the 
different forms which insanity assumes. 

Prognosis. — Single hallucinations which appear suddenly ; 
those uncombined with insanity ; the hallucinations of delirium 
tremens, and of febrile delirium, are, in general, very easily 
cured. 

The hallucinations caused by narcotic substances disappear so 
soon as the substance ceases to act on the system. 

Monomania of a lively character, and of recent occurrence, 
is only slightly influenced by hallucinations ; it is otherwise in 
that of a mournful character, which frequently receives from 
them the most unfortunate impulses. 

The prognoses are varied according to the form of insanity. 
Hallucinations may be dangerous in mania by the acts which 
they incite. 

The hallucinations of puerperal mania, of acute dementia, and 
of dementia, possess only a relative influence, excepting in some 
rare examples. It is the same in dementia with general paralysis. 

Hallucinations of long existence add to the seriousness of the 
prognosis. The fact that some very prolonged hallucinations 
have been cured cannot alter the rule. 

The nature of hallucinations is modified by their prolonged 
duration. 

The prognosis of simple hallucinations is more favorable than 
those of general hallucination. 

The prognosis of hallucinations compatible with reason is of 
slight consequence, especially when they last but a short time. 

Hallucinations of nervous diseases other than insanity, such as 
hypochondria and epilepsy, augment the serious nature of these 
affections. In acute inflammatory, chronic, and other diseases, 
hallucinations are in general transient, but they should not be 
the less carefully watched. It is often difficult to eradicate hal- 
lucinations which are combined with certain illusions. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS.* 

Opinions of MM. Esquirol, Lelut, and Calmeil — Opinion of Leuret — Sequestration 
— Two divisions : 1st. Physical treatment — Use of datura stramonium — Halluci- 
nations sometimes suddenly cured — Electricity — 2d. Moral treatment — Author's 
method — Leuret' s method — Objections — Treatment of hallucinations in the 
diseases which they characterize — Recapitulation. 

It is only of late that the treatment of hallucinations in France 
has attracted much of the attention of practitioners. This was 
the natural result of an opinion, universally admitted, that they 
were only a symptom of insanity. f The subject had, however, 
been the substance of several works ; and we are surprised at 
not finding any chapter relative to their treatment in the im- 
portant works of Ferriar, Hibbert, Esquirol, and Jacobi.J The 
French author declares that they do not require any particular 
treatment ; he nevertheless adds that they should be espe- 
cially considered in the intellectual and moral management of 
the alienated, and in the therapeutic views that might be pro- 
posed. The two English physicians have not been more explicit, 
and the German philosopher, although the cases he relates are 
interesting, does not propose any new plan for their treatment. 

M. Lelut reports several cases of sensorial insanity treated 
by physical agency, ivhere reasonings and moral impressions 

* It must not be lost sight of, that hallucination being generally united 
to some one of the forms of alienation, what we may say of the treatment 
will frequently apply to both maladies ; the distinction will be particularly 
recognized in the means employed against false ideas (ideesfausses). 

f We regret that we have not been able to procure the lectures of Gall, 
on hallucinations. They were published in the Gazette de France, in 
1807, 1808, or 1809. 

% Jacobi, Bemerkungen uber das studium der mit irrseyn Verbundenen 
Krankheiten, in seinem beobachtungen uber die' path ol. und therap. der 
mit irrseyn Yerbundenen Krankheiten, 1 Bd. pp. 1-24, Elberfeld, 1830. 



464 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

were likely to prove, and, in fact, had proved entirely useless. 
All the experiments were unsuccessful. 

M. Calmeil, in concluding his excellent work on hallu- 
cinations, thus expresses himself: "We will return to this sub- 
ject, the treatment of which, above all, enters into that of 
hypochondria and the different kinds of monomania." Now, 
in his article Hypochondrie, it is in nowise mentioned ; 
and in his article Monomanie, he says, speaking of sensorial 
monomania: "It is especially in this species of insanity, in 
monomania with hallucinations, that patients have been instan- 
taneously cured, by skilfully throwing a snake, frog, or slug into 
the basin destined to receive their dejections, at the moment 
when they were preparing to eject, either by the mouth or 
otherwise, the imagined animals which they insisted were living 
within them." We are far, however, says the author, from 
anticipating habitual success in the employment of similar 
stratagems, which are, happily, of easy accomplishment. In 
general, physical lesions, which give rise to partial delirium, do 
not yield with so much facility to external impressions, and a 
physician, whose practice is amongst monomaniacs, soon learns 
the use that must be made of a multitude of remedies from 
which an enthusiastic mind presages much success. 

Such was the state of science, when a man of ingenious 
mind and remarkable sagacity, sweeping away all that had 
been previously effected, announced that hallucinations, hitherto 
abandoned to the sole efforts of nature, were susceptible of 
treatment and cure, and that this desirable end could be ac- 
complished by attacking them boldly, harassing them inces- 
santly, and forcing them to acknowledge themselves beaten. 
This scientific opinion met with much opposition. But when the 
excitement was somewhat calmed, Lelut's book was acknow- 
ledged to exhibit a powerful will, numberless mental resources, 
and happy applications of a new method of therapeutics. 

Experience has verified the worth of this method. It was 
proved to be not of such universal application as its author 
imagined, who had experimented on the hospital patients. It 
was manifest that in private establishments, especially destined 
for those in whom education and the position of fortune had 
developed the exercise of the will, and, by consequence, the 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 465 

passion of pride, the origin of much insanity, it was needful 
that the treatment of the physician of Bicetre should be con- 
siderably modified. 

With this reservation, we are amongst the first to say that 
this method is destined to be of signal service, and that we shall 
have recourse to it whenever we consider it available. 

In studying the causes of hallucinations, it was easy to per- 
ceive that they demanded more attention, and more active 
means, than had hitherto been applied. 

The treatment of the symptom must not be disdained, and 
there are few diseases in which it is not often the sole resource 
of the practitioner. 

The treatment of hallucinations is not, however, so entirely 
negative as Leuret has endeavored to maintain in his work. 
Certainly, there exist neither rules, systems, nor doctrine ; but, 
in carefully looking over works on mental alienation, we find 
many cases of hallucinations to have been cured by physical 
and moral means. These facts, confirmed by practice, the study 
of causes and of symptoms, lead us, without farther preamble, 
to propose two divisions of treatment, the first comprising 
physical, the second moral means. 

Before we enter on the developments belonging to the sub- 
ject, we must speak of the place in which the treatment should 
be pursued. Must the hallucinated be isolated ? Can they be 
treated at their own homes? By Leuret's method sequestration 
is evidently necessary. In order to oblige a patient to acknow- 
ledge himself wrong, it is indispensable for him to understand 
that some one has authority over him, and that he is not master 
of his will ; without these conditions, obedience is impossible. 
The species of hallucination, its long standing, and its compli- 
cations also establish important differences. Is the necessity of 
isolation always indicated ? This is the first question, to which 
we will reply by examples. 

Case CLI. An English navy officer having devoted himself 
ardently to telescopic observations, imagined he had made 
remarkable discoveries in the sun. Amongst other strange 
assertions, he solemnly declared that, at the time of Napoleon's 
abdication, in 1814, he had seen the figure of the Emperor in 
that planet; that on the following day he had again seen it, but 
transformed into a skeleton. On the third day, the figure was 
30 



466 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

no longer visible ; but the united colors of the allies were alone 
distinctly seen. A copy of these apparitions was regularly 
entered on the ship's books, and it is said that several sailors 
bore witness to the truth of the observations. Notwithstanding 
this corroboration, very few persons put any faith in the discovery, 
and the officer had the mortification to find that the whole was 
regarded as a fallacy. There is no doubt that these illusions 
were perfectly inoffensive, that they did not interfere with the 
operations of his mind in the ordinary business of life, nor pre- 
vent the fulfilment of his duties. 

Conolly, from whom we have borrowed this case, adds that 
individuals ought not to be confined because they hold particular 
or even eccentric ideas, on certain subjects, otherwise a new 
field would be open for arbitrary measures. A man may be 
accounted singular, even insane, for believing in the existence 
of two worlds, the one invisible, the other visible ; that there is 
no such thing as solitude ; that every secluded spot is filled with 
spirits; that there is no act, howsoever secret, but has numerous 
witnesses. Nevertheless, in avowing this, he says nothing but 
what has been taught him by religion ; but if he goes one step 
farther, if he professes to communicate with these invisible 
beings, he runs the risk of being looked on as a madman, 
although many great men have believed in the reality of such 
things ; he is, in fact, under the influence of hallucination ; he 
has allowed his thoughts to assume a bodily form ; comparison 
and judgment are disordered. But, although unreasonable on 
this point, if his conduct be correct, and his actions irreproach- 
able, no one has a right to interfere in his affairs, to call him to 
account for his opinions, and still less to confine him. 

Thus, whenever hallucination is inoffensive, isolation is unne- 
cessary ; but this is no longer the case if it be prejudicial to 
himself or to others ; sequestration is then indispensable. 
Examples of mutilation, suicide, homicide, theft, and incendia- 
rism are so common among the hallucinated, that it is needless 
to insist on them. 

In regard to treatment, does not hallucination, even if in- 
offensive, require isolation when it has resisted the usual means 
employed in such cases ? 

It is not thus, when hallucination, howsoever transitory, may 
result in serious consequences. 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 467 

Case CLII. We were consulted some years since by a young 
lady artist, whose husband had very short epileptic attacks, 
which were immediately followed by mental alienation. He 
believed himself surrounded by menacing figures, and flames, 
and said that he saw spirits. In one of these paroxysms, he 
seized his wife by the throat and would have strangled her, but 
she escaped. At another time, he asked for a poniard to 
destroy the enemies whom he believed surrounded him. 

It is easy to conceive the alarm which these two attacks occa- 
sioned the young wife. "I can no longer endure," she said, "such 
a state of life. My sleep is disturbed by frightful dreams; every 
instant I seem to feel the shocks which precede those paroxysms. 
I study his slightest movements; it occupies my whole attention; 
my powers are paralyzed, my voice is weakened, I can no longer 
follow my profession. Come, sir, to my aid ! do not abandon 
me in so cruel a position ; in the name of Heaven, have pity on 
my fate !" The agitation of the lady, the tone of her voice, 
and the expression of her eyes, spoke more than words could 
do. 

On the other hand, the husband, having recovered himself, 
exhibited no sign of derangement in his faculties ; his conversa- 
tion was sensible ; he knew that he had been deceived by illu- 
sions. "When I suffer thus," he added, "it appears as if my 
ideas are confused ; my head becomes a chaos in which I can 
distinguish nothing." 

Young, fond of his wife, and not considering his indisposition 
dangerous, he was placed in a difficult situation, and his medical 
adviser no less so. 

It was evident that the kind of disease with which this young 
man was afflicted was most serious, for experience has but too 
often proved what catastrophes have arisen from mad and hal- 
lucinated epileptics. The moral condition of the woman required 
consideration ; in fact, a few degrees farther would bring suicide 
or madness. Isolation, then, was indispensable ; I advised it ; 
but taking into consideration the brevity of his attacks, and his 
rapid return to reason, I did not think it necessary to recom- 
mend a private retreat. I engaged his friends to point out to 
him the necessity of a separation of some months from his wife, 
and to take an oath to that effect, which plan was carried out. 

With our laws, sequestration was, in this case, impossible ; 
and yet what reliance could be placed on the word of a man 



468 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

whose disease might at any moment derange his reason, and who 
was, moreover, much enamored of his wife ? 

Section first. — Physical Treatment. — The intimate con- 
nection which unites the two constituent principles of man suf- 
fices to show that each in its turn may be influenced, and that 
thence it is necessary to have recourse to therapeutic means ap- 
plicable to both. Let us take a few examples: A female yields 
to the immoderate use of fermented liquors ; she has hallucina- 
tions ; simple isolation is sometimes sufficient to effect a cure ; but 
often we must resort to opium, bleeding, baths, etc. Another 
thinks she sees the devil ; reasoning, raillery, and the douche 
may eradicate the false sensation. In general, it is necessary 
to use both methods, in consequence of the reciprocal action of 
the two principles. An individual suffers violent grief, which 
he attributes to one of his enemies ; soon this particular person, 
or some other fantastic form takes entire possession of him ; he 
no longer sleeps, his blood becoming heated, to use a common 
expression, secretions and excretions are deranged. In this 
case, should not physical remedies precede moral means ? What 
reason teaches, experience demonstrates. 

The academician, Nicolai, subject to sanguine congestions, 
which required the use of bleeding, neglected this precaution ; 
phantoms of all kinds unceasingly beset him. He was bled, and 
restored to peace and quietness. 

Case CLIII. A lodging-house keeper, of a powerful consti- 
tution, a sanguine temperament, who, from time to time, in- 
dulged in excesses, was taken twenty-four years ago to the 
private mad-house of Madame Marcel de Saint Colombe, where 
I was visiting physician. He was much flushed, his eye was 
wild and brilliant. He explained, under great agitation, that 
his aunt had let a part of his house to the keepers of a mena- 
gerie (an error), which had exceedingly annoyed him. " One 
of them," he added, "has, at three different times, insulted my 
wife ; this conduct incensed me ; I rushed on the villain ; but 
although he changed himself into a horse, and diminished in 
size, it did not prevent me from killing him." 

This patient had, besides, hallucinations of sight ; he mis- 
named us all, and saw monsters and strange shapes in the air. 
Perhaps he metamorphosed the clouds into his conceptions. 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 469 

His excitement was so great that we were obliged to put on him 
the strait waistcoat. I had his head shaved, put thirty leeches 
on the sagittal suture, and on the following day he was placed 
in the bath. In two days his symptoms were much ameliorated. 
To these means were added purgatives, alternately with baths. 
In eight days from his admission to the house, he had entirely 
recovered the use of his intellectual faculties. 

In the article Hypochondria, we have stated the case of a 
German professor, who imagined himself to be under magnetic 
influence, and believed that a magnetizer was lodged within him. 
To divert his ideas, and at the^same time to relieve the pains of 
which he complained in the abdomen and stomach, I placed two 
large blisters on his legs. His countenance, which had been 
very sad, soon assumed a more cheerful expression ; he ceased 
to speak of his false sensations ; and the distraction caused by 
intellectual employment completed his cure. 

One of our patients was persuaded that several men had en- 
tered his room with evil intentions towards him. Full of rage 
at this idea, he endeavored to provoke them, and applied to 
them the most disgraceful epithets ; as they continued to jeer at 
him, he called loudly for a knife to kill his persecutors. The 
treatment consisted in purgatives and baths ; and in one month 
from his entrance he was restored in health to his family. 

Mademoiselle C. lost her senses owing to a disappointment 
in love ; she fancied her lover was constantly by her side ; per- 
ceived him in heaven, in the clouds, called him by the tenderest 
names ; she addressed him and he replied to her. This young 
lady was taken daily to the bath, where she remained four, five, 
and six hours, receiving the water on her head by means of con- 
tinued irrigation; on the fourth day the hallucinations ceased, 
and in one week she was perfectly cured. 

Sanguine emissions are at times useful, but must not be used 
too prodigally ; without referring to the serious results men- 
tioned by Pinel, and the truth of which can be attested by all 
physicians of the insane, experience proves that a patient may 
be bled even to syncope, without any change being effected in 
the ideas. 

Case CLIY. A medical doctor had hallucinations of sight 
and hearing. He entreated Esquirol to bleed him. The physi- 
cian of Charenton long resisted, but vanquished finally by his 



470 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

importunities, complied with his wishes. Scarcely had the 
assistant retired than he tore off the bandages, and filled several 
vessels with blood, when, feeling much weakened, he lay down 
on the bed, still bleeding profusely. On the return of the attend- 
ant, the patient was found in a state of exhaustion. He was, 
at length recovered, but remained quite blind. Notwithstand- 
ing the loss of blood, and the privation of sight, there was no 
modification in the delirium. The hallucinations preserved their 
energy, continuity, and character. We are acquainted with the 
sister of an esteemed artist, who, after too copious a bleeding, 
was confined to her bed for eighteen months, with a gradual 
diminution of sight ; the same phenomenon was manifested in 
the muscular system, and the fine power of execution which she 
had previously had on the piano, was, by this means, greatly 
weakened. 

Hallucinations have sometimes been cured by violent methods 
repulsive to humanity, but of which many examples are extant. 

Case CLV. A carpenter, of Anvers, imagined during the 
night that he saw horrible spectres ; the terror which he expe- 
rienced was so great that he went mad. He was sent to the 
tomb of Saint Dympna, a virgin, who had the reputation of 
curing the bewitched. There he remained for one year, during 
which time he was subjected to all the treatment usually given 
to maniacs. But, as his board was no longer paid, he was sent 
home bound, in a cart. During the journey, having succeeded 
in breaking loose, he jumped out into a deep pond, which was 
by the roadside. The drivers succeeded, after awhile, in drag- 
ging him out, and replaced him half dead on the cart. He 
nevertheless recovered, and lived for eighteen years completely 
cured of his insanity.* 

The case is interesting in connection with the spot, for Saint 
Dympna was revered in the village of Gheel, in Belgium, where 
there is still a large establishment for the insane, of some cele- 
brity; it proves, besides, that, under some circumstances, an 
abrupt emotion, or energetic therapeutic method, has sufficed 
to restore reason suddenly, f 

* Yanhelmont, Demens Idea, 49, oper. p. 175. 

f Brierre de Boismont, Remarques sur quelques etablissements d'alienes 
de la Belgique, de la Hollande, et de PAngleterre, 1847, pp. 8 et 20. 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 471 

An emetic, or a purgative, may sometimes cause the cessa- 
tion of hallucinations. The use of baths, or of the douche, 
deserves special mention. Under Leuret's practice, the douche 
has more than once obliged the patient to recognize the fallacy 
of his ideas. Other practitioners have not been so fortunate. 
Sometimes even the patients have acknowledged all that was 
required of them, in order to escape what they called the 
punishment of the douche. 

This means offers, however, useful resources, but it must be 
carefully regulated. If the hallucination be recent, and the 
character of the patient timid and fearful, the impression caused 
by a column of water may instantly change the current of his 
ideas. When persuasion, kindness, and raillery have failed in 
effecting this in a patient, whose position in life has accustomed 
him to the exercise of his own will, the douche, prescribed and 
executed with a great show of preparation, has, in some cases, 
succeeded. The probabilities would be fewer with a person of 
strong will and energy, especially if the hallucinations were of 
long standing. It would be the same in a case complicated with 
insanity, particularly if the monomania were of a gloomy charac- 
ter with a tendency to suicide. The hallucinations of mania, 
dementia, and general paralysis will rarely be alleviated by the 
douche. In one class of cases, the douche, far from ameliorat- 
ing, would aggravate the symptoms. 

For the douche, we have substituted continued irrigation. 
The water falls for hours together in a thin streamlet, or through 
small perforations, on to the head of the patient in the bath. 
The effect produced by this continual aspersion is, first, to keep 
up a constantly fresh temperament on the congested organ, 
without occasioning the symptoms caused by ice. And, secondly, 
it harasses the patient, who often asks to be released. 

We have observed the same effects from continued irrigation 
that others have noticed from the douche. After some hours of 
this treatment, these patients have entreated to be taken from 
the bath, admitting that they had talked nonsense before, but 
were now entirely cured. 

Case CLVI. A lady, hallucinated after her confinement, 
imagined that she saw a large figure in white which accompanied 
her everywhere. Her medical attendant recommended the 
application of leeches on the neck and the use of baths. But 



472 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

the patient became more violent, and it was feared would throw 
herself from the window. 

Her physician then recommended her being placed in my 
establishment. I had her immediately placed in the bath. For 
two hours the water flowed on her head. On my entering, 
"Sir!" she exclaimed, "pray let me out of this place; the 
water that falls on my head is insufferable ; I know it is done 
because I was mad; but, thank God, I am so no longer; do not 
leave me here." 

Before yielding to her wishes, I asked what had become of 
the great white figure. "I see it no more ; it was an illusion." 

This lady having given rational replies to all my questions, 
was conducted to her room ; and in eight days returned to her 
family quite cured. 

Such, however, are not always the happy results ; we have 
frequently seen the false ideas return after having momentarily 
ceased. In other circumstances, again, the false sensation has 
disappeared, but insanity has remained. 

We have found so much benefit in irrigation, that we have 
employed it in all cases in which it has appeared to us practi- 
cable, and the cures that we have effected by associating it with 
prolonged baths, have been so numerous and so rapid, that we 
believe we have rendered essential service to the therapeutics of 
mental maladies in pointing out the circumstances under which 
these means ought to be employed. 

The cases which we have described can leave no doubt of the 
efficacy of physical agents. How do they act ? In the greater 
number of cases, in calming the symptoms of excitation. It is 
because sufficient attention has not been paid to this period of 
the malady, that contrary opinions have been held. When the 
excitement is relieved, either by the remedies used, or from the 
effect of time, great advantages may be obtained by moral 
treatment. 

But before entering on this part of the subject, it will be well 
to say a few words on the medication proposed some years since 
by Dr. Moreau, of Tours, physician to the insane in Bicetre. 
This mode of treatment, which has some affinity to homoeopathy, 
since it is founded on the property which the datura possesses 
to cause hallucinations and illusions, was employed on those, 
who, if they could not be declared incurable, were yet in condi- 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 473 

tions more or less deplorable. Seven were cured, three expe- 
rienced only a transient amelioration. The cures were obtained 
in four, seven days, and one month, with moderate doses of 
extract of clarified sugar of stramonium, one decigramme night 
and morning ; for five, eight, or fifteen days, by increased doses, 
3 decigrammes in a potion, taking a spoonful every hour ; in 
twenty-four hours, for very powerful doses, 1 decigramme of 
extract, administered hourly, until physiological effects were 
observed. 

According to the author, they generally appear after the 
administration of 3 decigrammes. The use of datura in a 
large dose requires extreme caution. The patient must not be 
lost sight of for a moment, in order that the effect of the remedy 
may be watched and the symptoms combated, if they threaten 
to overpass normal limits.* 

From the precautions required, it is evident that such a 
medicament cannot be used without great circumspection. 
There is, moreover, a serious objection to it, which is, that it 
has not realized the same fortunate results in the practice of 
other physicians which it did in that of M. Moreau. In this 
case, the suspension of hallucinations appears to us to depend 
also on the action of the medicament. In experiencing the 
more or less varied symptoms which it causes on the economy, 
the hallucinated person feels himself drawn into another train 
of ideas ; the tingling in the ears, the buzzings, the nausea, the 
vertigoes and faintings, occasioned by the datura, surprise, 
astonish, and oblige him to reflect, and for a moment the false 
sensation is forgotten. 

The selection of cases which we make is of no minor im- 
portance ; for if, in the example we are about to give, the medi- 
cament had been hastily administered, a cure would have been 
attributed to it, due only to the efforts of nature. 

Case CLVII. A. lost his wife, who died a victim to his ill- 
usage. He became sombre and morose ; and suddenly in the 
night experienced hallucinations. He saw moving corpses and 
hideous phantoms, who came down in procession from the ceil- 
ing, and, one after the other, pulled him by the feet ; at other 
times he was transported to the borders of the sea, heard the 

* Journal des Connaissances Meclicales Pratiques, Fev., 1842, p. 134, 
Analyse de M. Bouchardat. 



474 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

moaning of the waves, and saw the steamboats rapidly plough- 
ing the main; then the scene suddenly changed, and enormous 
serpents sprang on him, entwining him in their vast folds, and 
stinging him in the abdomen. On the following night, his vi- 
sions were of horses, who made the roof crack with their stamp- 
ing. As soon as he closed his eyes, hoping to shut out these 
frightful visions, the fantastic panorama unrolled itself before 
him with still greater strength and rapidity. 

With the day, peace returned, and A. seemed to revive, feel- ' 
ing, as he said, relieved in a manner which it was impossible to 
describe. The approach of night plunged him into the greatest 
anxiety, and his alarm became such that he made his little girl 
of ten years old sleep by him, who had vainly tried to persuade 
him of the falseness of these apparitions. She observed naively 
to me, says the physician : "I might well stare, for I could see 
neither boats nor serpents." 

On the 13th of November, in the night, A. was found doubled 
up in a corner of his room, his hands joined in a suppliant pos- 
ture ; he was immovable ; his look was fixed, and expressive of 
terror ; he prayed the demon to have pity on him, and not per- 
secute him so severely. On the following morning, at day- 
break, he left home in a state of great exasperation ; his clothes 
were in disorder, his looks haggard; weeping, he told his child 
he was going to confess all the faults he had committed, for he 
saw the good God required it. 

On the 15th, he was conducted by the police to the asylum. 
On the first days of his sojourn, the hallucinations persecuted 
him. This state did not last long ; a remarkable change took 
place in his mental condition ; at night, he slept uninterruptedly ; 
he saw nothing, and no more heard a voice crying from the 
depths of his heart, that he should kill himself. (The treatment 
consisted in baths, and water for drink.) 

On the 23d, fresh hallucinations of sight assailed him during 
the night ; he saw a black machine, which turned rapidly around, 
and trees which danced like puppets. Early in the month of 
December, M. Aubanel carefully interrogated him; he found 
him very rational, excepting that he could not comprehend that 
all the abnormal phenomena which he had experienced were 
caused by aberration of the senses. He said he had seen, and 
truly seen them, for his eyes were open, and he was awake. On 
the 31st of the same month, he quitted the asylum cured. 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 475 

The hallucinations of A. were primary and complicated, with 
a very slight intellectual disturbance ; in a word, the case was 
one in which the datura stramonium would do wonders. This 
remedy was about to be tested, when M. Aubanel, in his dis- 
trust of the specific, put off the administration of the first doses 
for a few days ; in the interval, it happened that the organism 
brought its own grand resources into play, and the cure was 
effected in a very short time without the intervention of any 
therapeutic agent. Do we not see the same thing occur in 
many analogous cases ?* 

Some years since, M. Mettevie* conceived the notion of attack- 
ing hallucinations by electricity. He effected two or three cures 
by inserting needles in the membrane of the tympanum. This 
very painful method was, however, so difficult that he discon- 
tinued his attempts. 

M. Baillarger also experimented on electricity; he made the 
first essay on himself, and saw a number of bluish flashes pass 
before his eyes; the sensation affected him very painfully. As 
the puncturing of the membrane of the tympanum might occa- 
sion serious mischief, he invented a little apparatus, intended 
only to rest on the membrane. M. Baillarger believes that this 
means acts, by producing a diversion of ideas, more or less 
powerful, and that it is only in this manner that it can be useful. 

Medicaments occasionally succeed in the cure of hallucina- 
tions, not by their therapeutic effects, but by breaking the chain 
of ideas in the patient. 

Case CLVIIL A student of Berlin having always enjoyed 
good health, returned home one night in great alarm, and, with 
pallid countenance and bewildered looks, announced that he was 
to die in thirty-six hours. He went to bed, sent for a minister, 
and wrote his will. Symptoms, apparently so serious, alarmed 
his comrades ; Hufeland was called in ; his reasonings were una- 
vailing. This celebrated physician prescribed a powerful dose of 
opium, which threw the youth into a profound sleep, lasting far 
beyond the fatal term. On awaking, the date of the day and 
hour being proved to the student, he found that he had been the 
dupe of his imagination; his mind became calmed, his fears 
dissipated, and he returned to his usual gayety. The young 

* M. Estre, Observations recueillees dans la service de M. Aubanel, Jour- 
nal l'Esculape, 1842. 



476 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

man then related to his friends that, having walked out in the 
twilight, he saw a death's head, and heard a voice say to him : 
"Thou shalt die in thirty-six hours."* 

The principal physical agents employed in the treatment of 
hallucinations, are sanguine emissions made at stated periods, 
prolonged baths, either alone or with the douche, irrigation, and 
purgatives ; under some circumstances emetics, narcotics, and 
antispasmodics, and, finally, external revulsives, such as blister- 
ings, moxa, and setons. Many other remedies have been ex- 
tolled ; we think it unnecessary to give the list. One, however, 
the hot-water treatment, shall be mentioned on account of its 
author's name.f Manual labor is often a powerful auxiliary. 
It sometimes happens that patients are brought into the hos- 
pitals, whose insanity appears to proceed from an insufficiency 
of food. If hallucinations arise from this cause, good nourish- 
ment should be prescribed. And, lastly, we recommend a care- 
ful notification of the condition of all the organs, and the 
manner in which the functions act. 

Section second. — Moral Treatment. — When the excitement 
is calmed, moral means, which essentially consist in producing 
novel impressions, in rousing the affections, and fixing the atten- 
tion on foreign objects, may be of the greatest service. The 
choice of these must necessarily vary according to the educa- 
tion, mental acquirement, and the character of the delirium of 
the hallucinated. The means that would be successful with a 
distinguished man, would have no effect on one of mediocrity. 
The artisan would not understand the language of the savant. 
A woman would be accessible to consolations that could not be 
lavished on the other sex. The use of moral means requires 
sagacity, a knowledge of men, pliability of temper, and great 
perseverance. In this, as in everything, we agree in the maxim 
of La Fontaine :— 

'•Patience et longueur du temps 
Font plus que force ni que rage, "J 

as conducting to the most certain results. 

* Darwin, Zoononiia, t. i. p. 289. 

f Du Traiteraent des Hallucinations par Teau chaude. Broussais, 
Annal. de Med. -Physiol. Janvier, 1828. 

Time and patience do more than force or anger. 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 477 

If we take into consideration the immense part that ideas 
occupy in the production of hallucinations, we shall readily 
understand that to them we must have recourse for the cure of 
the false sensation which is the torment of the hallucinated. 

Shall we be contented to give diet, drinks, purgatives, and 
medicaments to this man, who imagines himself a teapot ; or to 
that other one, who thinks his head has been turned round? 
Could we conquer by a bath, or a sanguine emission, the con- 
viction of that hallucinated man, who asserts, in gloomy despair, 
that he is everywhere followed by his Double, who plays him 
the most treacherous tricks, ruins, dishonors, and will infallibly 
lead him to the tomb ? What remedy would be sufficiently 
energetic to chase away the phantom which an unhappy be- 
ing has ever before him, especially if the hallucination is caused 
by remorse of conscience? Will the douche always succeed in 
conquering the obstinacy of that melancholy man, who would die 
of hunger, rather than eat the food he fancies to be poisoned, 
or who is destroyed by pestilential odors ? 

Facts exist to show that if, in some cases, the remedy dis- 
perses these strange ideas, it more generally only combats the 
symptoms of excitation, and leaves the chimeras in all their 
force. 

A lady whom we attended, endeavored to destroy herself in 
order to escape the pursuit of an imaginary enemy, who quitted 
her neither night nor day. We conjectured that the periods 
were irregular, and bled her in the foot. On the following 
morning, she was quite an altered being ; all the distressing 
symptoms had ceased ; and she spoke of the falsity of the 
sensations she had experienced. In a few days she was restored 
to her family. 

But by the side of this case we must -place that of the phy- 
sician mentioned by Esquirol, and, unfortunately, such are the 
most numerous. After a judicious therapeutic medication, calm 
is re-established, and the patient conforms to the customs of the 
house ; the hallucination has not changed, but he speaks less 
of it. It is then that the physician must use all the resources 
of his mind to attack the idea, to weaken and eradicate it, now 
by direct, now by indirect methods, but always by a happy 
mixture of kindness and firmness. 

These precepts we will now apply to particular cases. 



478 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Case CLIX. Mademoiselle Claire, forty years of age, tall, 
brown, spare, and sinewy, had always enjoyed good health. 
This lady, religiously brought up, of sound judgment, very 
placid disposition, managing her aiFairs with excellent sense, 
and beloved by all who knew her, had never evinced any symp- 
toms of insanity until about eight months ago, when it became 
perceptible that her ideas were less lucid. Two years previously 
she had suffered a violent uterine hemorrhage, the result of pro- 
longed fatigue. Her mind, hitherto powerful, had become 
restless and timid ; the slightest thing disturbed her. This 
condition, which was not much noticed at first, made rapid pro- 
gress ; she lost her sleep, and uttered such violent and piercing 
shrieks that her neighbors were alarmed. No one could rest 
near to her. This situation demanded instant attention, and 
Mademoiselle Claire was transferred to my establishment. 

To my interrogations, she replied, that she had committed all 
imaginable crimes. "I am," said she, "the beast spoken of 
in the Apocalypse, which was to appear in 1840 ; God has 
abandoned me; Satan has entered into me; he is going to chase 
me through Paris." There was no evil in the world of which 
she was not the author. 

To whatever was said to her, she replied that she was lost. 
When an attempt was made to persuade her that she could not 
be so guilty as she pretended, she replied that if she had not 
already committed these crimes, she would do so. Her appetite 
was good ; all the functions acted well ; but her countenance 
was drawn, haggard, and of a yellowish cast ; her breath was 
offensive, and her tongue white; her sleep was short, and inter- 
rupted by sharp cries, which rang through the house. These 
shrieks were occasioned by the sight of hell and the devil, by 
the menaces which the bad spirits addressed to her, and by her 
dread of damnation. At times, also, during the day, she uttered 
yells. It would seem that there existed some internal crisis 
whose violence suddenly found vent in this manner. 

This irresistible desire to cry out exists frequently with 
females. Sometimes it consists in barking, howling, groaning, 
or mewing ; at others, in shrieks that succeed each other with 
the rapidity of lightning. You may be in tranquil conversation 
with the patients ; nothing intimates the approach of a crisis ; 
when, in the midst of the most rational discourse, you are sur- 



TREATMENT OP HALLUCINATIONS. 479 

prised by the violence and suddenness of the maniac bowlings. 
I have known several ladies who were no sooner under the 
influence of this singular affection, than they commenced running 
with all speed, to take refuge in some lonely spot, where they 
would not be noticed. They have afterwards told me that they 
obeyed an irresistible impulse, and felt no relief until they had 
uttered their shrieks.* There is evidently a choraic influence 
in this symptom. 

Madlle. Claire shunned me, because, whilst I evinced much 
interest in her, I likewise rallied her on her singular ideas : 
" How is it possible," I would say, " that a lady of your good 
sense can imagine she sees the devil, and that in the nine- 
teenth century ?" " You are, then, an unbeliever ?" " no ! I 
believe; but not in your idea." I would then leave her, after 
having endeavored to excite some doubts in her mind. 

At other times I would content myself with saying : " All my 
arguments are useless, I cannot convince you ; but doctors who 
attend the insane have long known, that to try and convince a 
madman, is to be as mad as he." "But I am not mad." She 
would then follow me to prove the reality of her sensations. I 
would laugh, but say nothing more. Sometimes I exclaimed 
against her pretence of having committed so many crimes. "It 
is either pride, or madness." She then made attempts to per- 
suade me that she was in her right mind. I listened or took no 
notice of her, according to the mood in which she might be. 

To counteract her physical excitement, I gave her baths and 
refreshing drinks. The hallucinations tormented her unceas- 
ingly, although she forbore to speak to me of them for fear of 
my ridicule. One evening she was with my little daughter, ten 
years of age : " Do you not see the flames that come out of my 
mouth?" she exclaimed; "they surround me, I am lost!" My 
child having laughingly replied : " What you say is very fool- 
ish ;" she laughed also ; and from that time spoke no more of 
flames. 

Madlle. Claire had some moments of relief, but the hallucina- 
tions would seem to return with increased force, particularly in 
the night, when she would cry out: "I am lost; I am damned." 

* A Brierve de Boismont, De l'lmitation du Cri des Animaux dans 
plusieurs affections nerveuses. Gaz. M6d. 8 Sept., 1849. 



480 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Neither exhortation, advice, nor reprimand had the least effect 
upon her ; only, when most harassed by such attempts, she be- 
came less confidential. 

As Madlle. Claire was at a critical period of life, and the ac- 
tion was irregular, I proposed a blister on the arm, to which she 
willingly acceded. Amongst her delirious fancies, was that of con- 
fessing to any person with whom she might be in company ; and 
it was then curious to hear this lady, of such sound judgment, 
accuse herself of a multitude of childish follies and frivolities 
which imbittered her life, transformed as they were into crimes, 
bj her perverted intellect. How could such a change have oc- 
curred in a mind until now so healthy ? Her fortune was suffi- 
cient ; no passion disturbed her heart ; she knew no grief; and 
moral causes, which I consider so powerful, had no existence in 
this case ; it could but be the influence of that constantly recur- 
ring periodical action common to women. I suggested the idea 
to my patient, who, although she denied that she was insane, 
acknowledged herself to be suffering, and asserted that she 
should never be cured. The idea of being at a critical time of 
life, seemed to impress her, and I frequently recalled it to her 
notice.* 

I showed her much kindness ; praised her sense, her judgment, 
at the same time I expressed my astonishment that one so hap- 
pily organized could entertain such fancies. Occasionally, I 
gently rallied her on her devils. "You may laugh," she would say, 
u but they do exist ;" and she would then laugh herself at my ban- 
terings. The conversations pleased her ; I called her self-love 
as much as possible into play, interested her mind, and appealed 
to her good sense. This plan, perseveringly carried out, at 
length produced a useful diversion in her ideas. When her symp- 
toms were decidedly ameliorated, I permitted her to go out and 
visit her friends. Sometimes these walks were matters of grief 
to her ; she looked on all whom she met as lost ; the luxury ex- 
hibited in the public gardens, and the brilliant toilets, espe- 

* Brierre de Boismont, De la Menstruation considered dans ses rapports 
physiologiques et pathologiques, 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 55, 100, 423, 436, 531. 
Recherches bibliographiques et cliniques sur la Folie puerperale, precedees 
d'un apergu sur les Rapports de la Menstruation et de 1' Alienation men- 
tale. (Annal. de Medico-Psychol, annee 1851, t. iii. p. 574.) 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 481 

cially excited her lamentations ; she saw a modern Babylon, 
with all its iniquities. By degrees her ideas became more cheer- 
ful, she went out more frequently, and occupied herself with 
worldly affairs. 

These results were not obtained without many alterations ; 
from being very lively she would suddenly become sad, and 
refuse to go out. Her recovery was characterized by her great 
desire for occupation ; she would work several hours in the day; 
her cries became less frequent ; she no longer fled society, and 
even talked much. Desirous, on one occasion, of profiting by 
this improvement, I invited her to write to her friends, but she 
refused, saying that she was too sick at heart. In the morning, 
she was calm, and said that she was like other people ; and she 
also laughed when rallied on her notion of being the beast men- 
tioned in the Apocalypse. 

In two months after her entrance into the establishment, she 
had a relapse ; she was continually bursting into tears, sighing, 
and crying out that the devil was carrying her off to hell be- 
cause she had communed under the weight of a mortal sin. 
Nevertheless, her progress towards recovery continued, and it 
became highly interesting to watch this struggle between reason 
and madness, with every probability that the former would gain 
the victory. 

I know not if I am in error, but it appears to me that there 
is no nobler mission than that of the physician, who watches the 
reawakening of reason ; who is an attentive observer of those 
strange perversions of natural affection, those irresistibly foolish 
ideas, whimsical phantoms, and fantastic creations of the imagi- 
nation. What joy will he not feel at seeing the first stone de- 
tached from the pile which madness has constructed to conceal 
human reason ! In that struggle where, often overcome, he still 
rises to the combat, by turns using force, skill, persuasion, and 
kindness, how great must be his satisfaction when he has suc- 
ceeded, through patience and a knowledge of the human heart, 
in conquering the chimera ! 

Madlle. Claire was at length in a condition of mind which 
evinced that the false idea tottered on its base. She smiled when 
she was rallied, and resolved on going to church ; but having 
reached the threshold, she declared it was impossible for her to 
cross it ; she felt as though nailed to the doorway ; no reason- 
31 



482 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ings could induce her to enter the building, and she returned 
home.* By degrees the ladj became calm, worked at her needle, 
and visited her friends. 

In four months after her arrival, she wrote and worked ; her 
countenance had a natural expression, but still she would not 
realize her real state, wept and mourned from time to time, say- 
ing that she never should be well ; however, she could now con- 
trol her will. 

In two months more she was so far convalescent that I 
arranged for her departure, no doubt existing of her entire re- 
covery. She was much agitated on the evening preceding, from 
the dread she felt of a relapse, but soon after she was seated in 
the carriage, recovered her spirits, and was very lively. 

My prognosis on the happy termination of the alienation of 
this lady was founded on the following reasons : she had never 
betrayed any whimsicalities or strangeness in her conduct ; never 
had any brain disease, her periods were regular ; she was cor- 
rect in judgment, sound in mind, sensible in discourse, but cold 
and reserved ; she was well informed, had read good books, and 
her reflections were judicious ; finally, none of her relatives had 
ever been insane. These united considerations led me to consider 
her as under the influence of a critical time of life excited by 
continence, and the uterine hemorrhage which she had expe- 
rienced. The pathological condition of the uterus in reacting 
on the brain, had given explosion to the ideas with which it was 
familiar. The conclusion that we drew from this assemblage of 
facts, which the event justified, was, that after a sojourn of some 
months in our establishment the menses would entirely cease, 
and reason be restored. 

I still followed the mental condition of Madlle. Claire with 
a lively interest ; from her letters I learned that she had en- 
tered the Church, fulfilled all her religious duties, and was quite 
well. Still more recently she wrote word that her cure was 
entire, and thanked me affectionately for my attention. Five 
years afterwards, her health continued excellent. 

With this lady, hallucinations formed the chief characteristics 
of the disease; the false ideas which accompanied them, were 

* This fact, related in all histories of the possessed and of sorcerers, is 
naturally explained by the character of the delirious conception. 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 483 

but the consequences. The physical agents were but few, for, 
with the exception of some baths and a blister, it was impossible 
to persuade her to take any medicaments. Her dry and nervous 
constitution made us reject bleeding. Probably, these remedies 
had some effect; but we are firmly convinced that the moral 
treatment which we perseveringly carried out during several 
months contributed mainly to the re-establishment of her reason. 

We have selected this case from many others, because we 
cannot in a history of hallucinations accumulate facts as we 
might in a special pamphlet, and this one appears sufficient to 
make our method apparent. 

An unexpected event, or a sudden comparison of what is, 
with what is believed to be, suffices, under some circumstances, 
to cause the cessation of hallucinations. 

The prefect of the empire, whose case we have given in de- 
tail, exclaimed, on seeing the Cossacks in the Jar din des Plantes : 
"Enough, I am cured!" Another patient of Esquirol awaited 
the speedy advent of the Messiah. After a long conversation 
with that physician, she gave a written agreement that she 
would acknowledge herself to be mad, if the Messiah did not 
come on the 25th of March. On the day appointed, the Mes- 
siah did not appear; the patient yielded with a good grace, 
resumed her former habits, and, in a very short time, her 
reason was restored. 

Case CLX. A lady, having become melancholy after giving 
birth to a child, struggled long between reason and insanity, 
and, finally, concluded that she had committed a capital crime, 
which infamy had caused the death of her husband, whose 
spirit haunted her. Every evening she would sit at the window 
and gaze at a white post, which appeared to her as the ghost of 
her husband. Several weeks having passed in this manner, 
without any amelioration, her husband resolved on seeing her, 
for, although he was told that sequestration was an essential 
means towards recovery, he conjectured, with much reason, that 
the best method of proving his existence, was to appear before 
her. 

It was in vain for the physicians to object that his wife 
would look upon him as a ghost; his importunity was irresist- 
ible. The results of the visit, as communicated by the husband, 
were wonderful. "So soon," said he, " as I entered the dining- 



484 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

room, where my wife usually set, she ran to a corner, hid her 
face in her handkerchief, and then turned towards me, appear- 
ing for a moment pleased to see that I was living ; but presently, 
in great terror, cried out that I was dead, and had come to haunt 
her. This was exactly what the doctors had predicted, and, for 
some minutes, I thought all was lost. 

" Finding that persuasion and reasoning only served to irri- 
tate and confirm her in her belief, I abandoned this means, and 
endeavored to attract her attention on other subjects. It was 
some time since she had seen either myself or the children ; I 
drew her arm within mine, took her into the garden, and began 
to tell her all that had happened to myself as well as to them, 
since her departure. These details soon arrested her attention, 
and she began to be interested ; I entered into the most minute 
and circumstantial particulars of our nursery, the house, and of 
her friends. I felt that I was gaining ground, and when I 
thought that her attention was quite gained, I hazarded the 
question, in a jesting manner, if I was not very communicative 
for a ghost. She commenced laughing. I immediately quitted 
the subject, and again talked of her children and friends. The 
plan succeeded beyond my expectations; I passed the evening 
with her, and left her perfectly tranquil." 

This happy result was entirely successful, and although general 
objections may be raised against the attempt, it is impossible 
not to recognize that it does sometimes succeed.* 

Leuret's method should naturally find its place here ; although 
we have pointed out its principal features, we think that an 
example from his work is indispensable, in order to make it well 
understood. 

Case CLXI. A., forty-two years of age, a carpenter, un- 
married, entered Bicetre on the 18th of June, 1839. 

Of a nervous sanguine temperament, A. made much use of 
alcoholic drinks ; he said that his father, likewise, drank much, 
which, on several occasions, caused a derangement of intellect. 
A., being of an active and impatient disposition, was easily put 
out of temper. When working at his trade with his companions, 
he could not endure the slightest jesting. However, he had 

* Conolly, op. cit. p. 402. "VVe know of a similar case that occurred in 
Esquirol's establishment, and the account of which we received from an 

eye-witness. 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 485 

never evinced any symptoms of insanity, until, fifteen days prior 
to his admission into Bicetre, his sleep began to be disturbed. 
It was then that he experienced hallucinations. He believed 
himself to be pursued by spies ; the voices which he heard 
called him spy. At the same time, he took it into his head that 
the master carpenter had spoken of buying for him a wine store, 
which was alongside the yard in which he worked. 

He betrayed no agitation on his entrance into the asylum, 
but related that for a month past he had been subjected to many 
torments and persecutions. Three persons especially persevered 
in annoying him, the wine merchant amongst the number, who 
treated him as a spy and a thief. A violent dispute arose on 
the subject, and the patient demanded 500 francs damages. 
He also spoke of the proprietor, who had made him many pro- 
mises. This man, he said, liked him much, and his wife gave 
him a thousand encouragements every hour in the day. A. 
often heard the voices of his enemies speaking to him ; more- 
over, he imagined himself very rich, and that he had command 
of everything of the most beautiful kind. 

The treatment administered to him for some time consisted in 
cupping on the nape of the neck, baths with affusion, foot-baths, 
and lemonade. He was afterwards required to work, but he 
obstinately refused. 

On several douches being administered, he promised to go to 
work, but the promise was almost immediately forgotten. Indeed, 
he tired out the patience of M. Ferrus. He slept nearly the 
whole of the day, either in the yard, or by the side of his bed, 
continuing very calm, and never speaking of his insanity. 

On the 12th September, Leuret, who had undertaken him, 
inquired if he was willing to work ; he refused, alleging bodily 
weakness as an excuse, and saying that, after all, he could not 
be detained long at Bicetre ; that he would soon be released, 
and would work at his trade as soon as he was restored to liberty. 
He complained, besides, that he was subjected to the tricks of a 
number of persons who gave him no peace night or day, and 
entirely prevented his having an instant of rest. 

A. was immediately taken to the bath and placed under 
the douche ; when Leuret questioned him on all that had occur- 
red since his entrance into Bicetre. 

"For six months I have studied things here of which I was 



486 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

ignorant ; I have learned all these things by looking at the stars; 
for instance, I have acquired some knowledge of anatomy." 

" What is anatomy ?" 

"Anatomy is the different things that appear in the clouds ; 
animals and people. I have seen different persons in the sun ; 
and have learned that the sun gives me light. There is a person 
in the moon whom I do not know." 

" Did you know that person on earth ?" 

" No, M. Leuret ; for six months I have worked for the 
castle, on the security of the king, and have not drawn a cent. 
I looked at the sun whilst I worked, and when my eyes pained 
me, I stopped, and then looked again." 

" You think you have enemies ; who are they ?" 

"Yes, I have enemies here; first the parlor waiter. There 
are others whom I hear, but do not see ; they are under the 
head of my bed ; if you will let me search in the body of the 
building, I shall soon find them. The vaults are under the head 
of my bed, and there are my men, who will carry my orders to 
Paris. I have, besides, many other enemies. At night I hear 
women beneath me. They tell me everything." 

" What do they tell you ?" 

" They tell me I am a great idler. They talk to me inces- 
santly when I am in bed, when I am resting, when I am in the 
court ; they talk to me everywhere, and always to annoy and 
insult me." 

u How is it that you do not now hear women's voices ?" 

" Probably because there are many persons about." 

" But, by your bedside ; how is it that your neighbors do not 
hear these same voices ?" 

" Because the conversations are carried on in a low tone, 
and often only by signs." 

Having listened very calmly to this narration, Leuret spoke 
to A. as follows : — 

"Now, A., I will tell you what I think of all you have been 
saying : there is not one word of truth in it; all that you have 
said is nonsense, and you are in Bicetre because you are mad." 

A. replied: "M. Leuret, I do not think I am mad ; I cannot 
help seeing the persons who are under mj bed and in the vaults, 
since they are there. You say that all I have said is nonsense; 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 487 

it may be so ; but I know what I have seen and heard. After 
what you say, then, there is no hope of my leaving this place ?" 

"You shall leave it, but upon one condition ; listen attentively 
to what I am about to say. You will only leave it when you 
are no longer mad, and I will tell you what you must do to 
be so no longer. You must look neither at the sun nor at the 
stars ; you must not believe that there are vaults under your 
bed, because it is not so ; neither do you hear voices, nor are 
any persons there. Moreover, you must never refuse to work, 
whatever you are ordered to do. If you wish me to be pleased 
with you, you must obey, because I only ask what is reasonable. 
Will you promise neither to think nor speak any more of these 
follies?" 

" If you wish me to speak of them no more, because you say 
they are follies, I will not." 

"Will you promise me not to think of them?" 

The patient hesitated considerably, but the point being per- 
sisted on, he replied : — 

"No sir, I will not think any more of them." 

" Will you promise me to work every day when you are 
ordered?" 

" I have a trade; I want to go out to work at it." 

"I have told you on what conditions you can go and work at 
your trade. Now, I ask you if you agree to work?" 

The patient was obstinate. 

"As you have often broken your word on this point, and your 
promises are not to be relied on, you shall receive the douche, 
and it will be continued every day, until you come, of your own 
accord, to ask for work; and until you own, also, of your own 
accord, that all the things you have said are nonsense." 

The douche was administered, and was so painful that he soon 
gave in. 

"You wish me to go and work; I will go. You desire me to 
think no more of what I have said, because they are fancies ; I 
agree. If any one talks to me about it, I shall say it is not 
true, that I only had fancies in my head." 

"Will you go and work to-day?"— "If I am forced to it, I 
must." 

"Will you go willingly?" — "I will go, if I am forced." 

"You should say, that you understand it is to your interest 



488 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

to go and work. Will you go willingly, yes or no ?" The patient 
hesitated, and the douche was again given, when he quickly 
said, " Yes, sir, all that I said to you was nonsense; I will go to 
work." 

"You have been mad?" — "No, I have not been mad." — 
"You have not been mad?" — "I think not, at least." — "The 
douche again!" — "Have you been mad?" — "It is then being 
mad to have fancies, to see, and to hear?" — "Yes." — "Well, 
then, sir, I have been mad. There were neither women, nor 
men, nor companions, but it was all madness." 

" When you think you hear something of that kind, what 
will you say?" — "I shall say it is nonsense, and not dwell on 
it." 

"I expect that to-morrow you come and thank me for having 
rid you of your foolish ideas." — "I promise that I will work, 
and thank you for having rid me of my ideas." 

On the evening of the same day the douche was administered 
to him by M. Auband, for having forgotten to go to work during 
the day 

September 13. This morning A. came towards Leuret, as 
soon as he appeared in the courtyard, and thanked him for 
having rid him of his fancies ; he was waiting the hour to go to 
work. Since yesterday he had neither seen nor heard anything; 
they were, he said, illusions ; he was now convinced of it. 

September 14. The same protestations as yesterday 

A. neither saw nor heard anything, and spoke jestingly of his 
past fancies. Leuret tried to entrap him, but A. skilfully 
avoided it, always asserting that his ideas were nonsensical. 
.... For several days Leuret renewed his attempts, but unsuc- 
cessfully. 

September 25. There can be no doubt of the radical cure of 
A. This man, prior to the latter treatment, was thin and me- 
lancholy ; he had now recovered his corpulence, at the same time 
with his cheerfulness. He slept quietly, and was good-humored 
to everybody. He thoughilie had seen; he thought he had heard, 
were all the expressions he mad« use of in replying to questions 
on the different nature of his hallucinations. He asked for his 
dismissal, which was granted to him on the 3d of October, 
twenty days after the long conversation of the 12th of Sep- 
tember. 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 489 

"The cure of A.," says Leuret, "was owing, doubtless, in 
the first place, to the douche ; and, secondly, to the care which 
I took, whilst he was in the bath, to speak on all the subjects 
connected with his insanity, and to make him give me rational 
replies. ... I was not contented so long as there was, or ap- 
peared to be a mental reservation in his words. If I had been 
contented with A. 's reply, I should have been at a disadvantage, 
and, probably, not have succeeded. I was not over delicate 
towards his self-love; I obliged him to utter the word 'mad,' in 
order, if possible, to make the idea of madness and of his ma- 
lady inseparable, by the use of a repulsive epithet. 

"The bath treatment once over, I wished him to work, in 
order that he might give me proof of acting like a rational man. 

"I often spread traps for the insane, who, after the douche, 
appear rational. I return to them, pretending to be sorry for 
the remarks I made, and the distress I caused them, and, if 
they are caught, I show them wherein they were deceived, in 
order to put them constantly on their guard. As in this kind 
of strife, my object was not to punish, but to cure, of course, 
I was careful to proportion the stratagems I employed to the 
degree of intellect of the patients whom I addressed."* 

This very interesting case, the chief points of which we have 
extracted, appears a powerful argument in favor of the opinion 
we have elsewhere pronounced on the difficulty of applying the 
treatment of Leuret, in all cases, to patients in private asylums. 
Whatever talent the physician may possess who puts this system 
into execution, we repeat to him that men of education, accus- 
tomed to compare, to reflect, and to will, will not so readily 
yield up their ideas, and that dreadful scenes might ensue on 
telling them they were mad, especially in obliging them to 
acknowledge it. That the hallucinated subject reasons falsely, 
on one or two points is incontestable, but on the rest his judg- 
ment is sound; would not this disposition of mind of which he 
is conscious contribute to strengthen his false sensations? The 
world is full of men of imperfect judgment. Let them listen to 
the most eloquent, persuasive, and logical orator, but who 
offends their prejudices, and not one of their convictions will be 

* Leuret, Du Traitement moral de la Folie, p. 186. Hallucines, Traite- 
ment des Hallucinations, 1 vol. 8vo. Paris, 1849. 



490 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

changed. Who, then, can be persuaded in life ? The infinitely 
small number of those who are gifted with a cool judgment, and 
lively and impressible natures; the immense majority obey only 
their passions, great or trivial. Is it likely we can do that for 
madmen which we cannot accomplish for rational men ? It is 
certainly necessary to distinguish the errors resulting from dis- 
ease from those consequent on education, and Leuret was right 
in saying that they could never prevent a few from believing in 
the immediate coming of the Messiah, nor cure certain of the 
populace of their faith in sorcery; but have not the errors which 
this physician attributes to the disease their source in education? 
How can they be conquered by an open attack ? The victory 
may be easy in a hospital ; we think it much more rare in pri- 
vate asylums, particularly when attempted on firm or proud 
characters. All have not been cured who have undergone this 
treatment. Three years ago we were consulted by a priest, 
who had a mania that he was a bishop. Under the douche, he 
appeared to recognize his error, and quitted Bicetre. These 
were his words : " I acknowledged myself wrong because there 
was no other means of escaping the punishment, and because 
all my assertions would have been useless in a place where the 
doctor is all-powerful ; but in receiving it, I was not the less per- 
suaded that all I said was true." His expressions were unjust 
and exaggerated, but the fact of dissimulation existed neverthe- 
less. In our own practice, when recourse had been had to dis- 
simulation, the patients have said, when out of our hearing: 
" We yield because we are powerless against force, but we are 
not the less certain of the reality of our ideas." 

Pariset, in an address to the Acade'mie de Medecine, has 
made other objections to this method. a What can severity do," 
he inquires, "for the hallucinated ? on those who are disturbed 
with strange sounds, voices, words, phrases, or discourses ? . 
To wring from these unfortunates, through suffering, an avowal 
that they do not hear what they do hear, is to make them utter 
a falsehood, and that falsehood, by degrading them in their own 
eyes, fills them with hatred and disdain towards their physician; 
and as they are not insane from their hallucinations, but from 
the false ideas attached to them, to attack these ideas in order 
to destroy them, to combat them by arguments and violence in 
order to bring the patient back to the single sentiment of his 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 491 

internal impressions, is most frequently but to imbitter his life 
with fresh torments."* 

These objections do not influence Leuret, who, after refuting 
them, adds: "If the recollection of the service you have ren- 
dered the afflicted person does not dispel his resentment, be it 
so ; let him hate you, so long as he is cured. "f 

We will make but one observation, which is, that it is not 
always without bad results that the insane person is made to ac- 
knowledge his error. 

Case CLXII. A man named Vincent believed himself to be 
so tall that it was impossible for him to pass through the door 
of his room. His physician ordered that he should be taken 
through by force. The order was executed, but the consequences 
were fatal ;• • for, in passing through, Vincent cried out that 
they were crushing him, and breaking his bones, and the impres- 
sion was so terrible that he died in a few days, reproaching his 
keepers for being his murderers.J 

Science has now admitted the conclusion that hallucinations 
may be successfully treated. In this, point we agree with 
Leuret, but we differ as to the mode of execution. Whilst he 
insists on his mode of treatment for the generality of cases, 
which he calls moral revulsion [revulsion morale), we only think 
it applicable to a certain number of cases, determined by the 
social condition of the patients, their character, and the quality 
of their delirium. Ear from reducing the treatment of halluci- 
nations to moral means only, we think it necessary sometimes 
to have recourse to physical agents, sometimes to moral influ- 
ence, and sometimes to a union of the two methods. By means 
of this mixed treatment, in connection with the etiology and 
symptomatology of hallucinations, numerous and durable success 
will be obtained, which, without presenting the brilliant cures 
referable to the method of Leuret, will, amongst practitioners, 
offer the immense advantage of not encountering those nume- 

^ Bulletin de PAcademie Royale de Medecine, Paris, 1839, t. iv. p. 83. 
Report of M. Pariset on the Memoir of Dr. Blanche, entitled : " Du danger 
des rigueurs corporelles dans le traitement de la Folie, Paris, 1839." — See, in 
the biographical notice which we have devoted to M. Leuret, Annal. Med. 
Psych., t. iii. pp. 512 and 520, 1851, our appreciation of his method. 

f Leuret, op. cit. p. 207. 

% Marcus Donatus, Hist. Med. Var. lib. ii. cap. i. 



492 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

rous asperities with which our poor humanity is beset. As to 
the choice of moral agencies, the physician must be guided by 
the individuality, the particular disease, and certain indications, 
which, notwithstanding they have been ridiculed under the name 
of medical tact, are, nevertheless, often the luminous beacons 
which guide us in difficult cases. 

Contradiction and firmness are certainly useful, but we are 
better satisfied not to attack hallucinations openly, but to take 
them by stratagem, and fight them after the manner of the Par- 
thians. Hallucinated monomaniacs differ from other men only 
by holding some peculiar notions ; in other respects they are 
similar. Mild methods, by which so many enterprises are con- 
ducted, are equally applicable to them ; therefore, we do not 
hesitate to give to these the preference in most cases. 

During our study of hallucinations, we have established seve- 
ral positions. It is evident that the therapeutic just mentioned 
is only useful in some instances ; that in others it cannot be em- 
ployed ; that in short, various cases present various symptoms ; 
it is by the examination of these divers circumstances that we 
will close our chapter on treatment. 

Hallucinations compatible with reason may be habitually 
manifested without any derangement of the intellect ; in such 
cases, therapeutic agents would be useless ; but there are other 
cases in which these phenomena are distressing, and disturb all 
peace and tranquillity ; then physical remedies may speedily 
promote a cure. An individual hears incessantly the voice of a 
woman ; although placing no faith on the error of the senses, he 
seeks medical relief. In consequence of some symptoms, M. 
Bottex applies leeches behind the ears, mustard to the calves of 
the legs, mustard foot-baths every night, the use of new milk 
and orgeat syrup, with two of Anderson's pills for several clays. 
To these remedies manual labor is added, and in the course of 
one month the patient is entirely cured. It was by bleeding 
that we cured Madame of her visions. 

In hallucinations of this nature, the cause must be carefully 
sought out. Thus, the treatment would vary according to whe- 
ther they resulted from an afflux of the blood, or an accumula- 
tion of bile in the stomach. The same would be the case if they 
were caused by a powerful concentration of thought, or by the 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 493 

weakness of convalescence. Hallucinations created by dark- 
ness, terror, and imprisonment, cease with the exciting causes. 

The treatment required in simple hallucinations, and in those 
which are complicated with insanity being the express objects of 
this book, we will observe that, when mental alienation prepon- 
derates, against that must therapeutic means be employed. It 
is only when the hallucination forms the striking characteristic 
of monomania, that it may be successfully treated. In mania 
and dementia, hallucinations only require physical treatment 
when the physical health of the patient is deranged. Some- 
times, however, mania is increased by hallucinations or illusions. 
In this event, it should be discovered if light or noise does not 
induce them. Should this be the case, the patient should be 
placed in the dark, and care taken that no noise should be 
around him. Anodynes are clearly indicated. Under other cir- 
cumstances, the patient must, on the contrary, be placed in the 
light. Bleeding may be found necessary, and relief will be the 
result. 

Delirium tremens is often accompanied by hallucinations, fre- 
quently of a very importunate character ; solitude, baths, and 
opium, remedies employed against mental diseases, equally 
triumph over hallucinations. This kind of delirium offers a prac- 
tical fact, which should be generally known, namely, that cer- 
tain individuals accustomed to the use of fermented liquor can- 
not be deprived of it suddenly without distressing symptoms ; 
they should be allowed a moderate quantity of wine or brandy. 

Drunkenness may occasion very strange hallucinations ; they 
are commonly dispelled when the effects caused by fermented 
liquors cease ; if they persist, bleeding, a purgative, an emetic, 
or an opiate, will usually free the individual from their presence. 

Hallucinations caused by narcotic substances, require, under 
most circumstances, therapeutic means. The treatment is evi- 
dent when they have been occasioned by datura or belladonna, 
etc. The medicaments used are those which belong to cases 
of poisoning by those substances. When hallucinations are 
caused by the use of haschisch or opium, nature must be left to 
herself ; the symptoms will cease in a few hours. If the effects 
of the opium be too much prolonged, appropriate antidotes must 
be applied. 

Nervous diseases, such as catalepsy, epilepsy, hysteria, hypo- 



494 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

chondria, and rage, which are more or less accompanied by hal- 
lucinations, do not point out any especial indications against 
this symptom, unless it prevails over all the rest. When it oc- 
curs in epilepsy, the results may be very serious, and the great- 
est attention is required on the part of the medical attendant. 
Moral treatment is chiefly applicable to hypochondria ; but if 
the patient be a man of education, enlightened, irritable, and 
wilful, the method of Leuret may have unhappy drawbacks. 

When hallucinations which have arisen in nightmare continue 
on waking, or when they are nightly reproduced, it is necessary 
to have recourse to medical advice. Every organ should be ex- 
amined with the greatest attention, for it not unfrequently hap- 
pens in this case that they are connected with a derangement 
of the digestive organs. At other times, a moral emotion, or a 
painful impression will cause them. Schenkius speaks of a man, 
on whom every night a woman flung herself, and who was so 
terrified that he was like a madman. Two or three conversa- 
tions with his physician effected his cure. In another case, men- 
tioned by the same physician, it was necessary to resort to 
medicaments. 

Hallucinations may be exhibited in dreams, and precede the 
appearance of insanity; they have then a distressing character, 
which fact, combined with a knowledge of the temperament of 
the person, his antecedents, and any bodily disorders may point 
out the path to be pursued. A judicious employment of medical 
means may perhaps succeed in checking the development of 
insanity. When hallucinations disturb the rest of the insane, 
they require, in most cases, the employment of remedies. 
Bleeding, purging, and a bath are sometimes sufficient to insure 
relief. 

Ecstasy frequently attaches itself to a morbid nervous over- 
excitability, which can only be calmed by therapeutic agents. 
According to the cases, physical or moral means should be 
adopted. In the Swedish epidemic, of which Dr. Souden re- 
cently gave a description, the diminution, and, probably, the 
cessation of the malady was, in a great measure, owing to the 
non-accomplishment of the promises made by the hallucinated 
ecstatics. Let us add, however, that, in this moral epidemic, 
medicine was frequently useful. 

The treatment of hallucinations which are consequent on 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 495 

acute delirium, and in those maladies which do not belong to 
the different categories which we have enumerated, constitute 
nothing special; it is almost always such as is proper to each 
of these affections. The false sensations created by fever, 
disappear with it. We recollect the case of a young man, of 
sanguine temperament, who, being suddenly attacked with a 
violent cephalalgia, with fever, saw shadows flying before him, 
amongst which he chiefly distinguished that of a female in 
white. At times he recognized the falseness of these sensations, 
whilst at others he would address these fantastic personages, 
and express his surprise at their appearance. 

On the following day, these illusions had entirely passed 
away. Sometimes, however, hallucinations persist after the 
fever has ceased. In such a case bleeding is necessary, either 
by leeches or cupping, with purgatives, and baths with cold 
affusions ; and, in cases where they do not yield to these vari- 
ous means, a blister might be successfully applied. 

Intermittent fevers sometimes become complicated with hallu- 
cinations. Should this symptom be prolonged in convalescence, 
sulphate of quinia should be resorted to. 

Hallucinations are frequently observed in typhus, and we have 
remarked them also in some cases of typhoid fever.* They, in 
general, disappear in proportion as strength returns. It may, 
however, happen that the overthrow, which the nervous system 
has received, prolongs them much beyond the ordinary time. 
Tonics and a good hygienic regimen are extremely essential 
under such circumstances. With the re-establishment of health, 
the errors of the senses cease. 

A morbid condition of the digestive organs is sometimes an 
occasion of hallucinations. The organs must then be examined, 
which, in fact, should always be done when any derangement is 
manifested in the economy ; cooling and refreshing drinks, and 
a dietetic regimen, are the only means required. Hallucination 
may arise from the presence of some substance offensive to the 
stomach. One of our brethren reported the case of a lady who 
saw visions whenever she partook of coffee; here may be re- 
peated the aphorism : Sublatd causd, tollitur effeetus. 

* See the work of M. Gaultier de Claubry, in which the identity of 
typhus and typhoid fevers is powerfully sustained. 



496 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Hallucinations have been manifested in the most diverse affec- 
tions. The Edinburgh Journal relates the case of a lady who, 
after an attack of gout, was assailed by phantoms. She was 
cured of this disturbance of the senses by cataplasms on the 
feet, gentle medicine, and above all, by a slight attack of her 
disease. Sometimes hallucinations appear in the last stage of 
chronic diseases ; an agreeable surprise, in this case, has caused 
their instantaneous cessation. When they occur in the weakness 
of convalescence, good nourishment, pure air, and tonics are 
the most suitable remedies. 

It would be easy, on examining the many works on pathology, 
to increase the number of diseases which are complicated with 
hallucinations. "VYe have limited ourselves to those which most 
frequently offer that symptom. The cases which we have indi- 
cated, and their analogy, will point out the rule of conduct to 
be followed in similar circumstances. 

M. Miche'a recommends in many cases society, a light cheerful 
situation, the avoidance of any object connected with the nature 
of the hallucination, and the awakening of attention.* 

Recapitulation. — The treatment of hallucinations has long 
been completely unnoticed in France. The examination, how- 
ever, of their causes, symptoms, and particularly of clinical 
facts, proves the possibility and certainty of their cure. 

Leuret was the first to reduce to a system the treatment of 
hallucinations. The only objection that can be made to his 
method is, that it is too general and too exclusive. 

Etiology, symptomatology, and clinical facts prove that phy- 
sical and moral agents, separate or united, must be used in the 
treatment of hallucinations according to circumstances. 

Solitude is a necessary measure in a great many cases ; but it 
must not always be insisted on. 

Two divisions should be established in their treatment ; that 
of physical agency, and that of moral means. 

In physical treatment, the most useful therapeutic agents are 
bleeding, refreshing drinks, baths, purgatives, and blisters, to 
which occupation and exercise must be added. In a case of 
delirium tremens we successfully applied thirty leeches along 
the sagittal suture, after having shaved the head. 

* Michea, Du delire des Sensations, p. 326, et seq. 



TREATMENT OF HALLUCINATIONS. 497 

In hallucinations with excitement, we have found great advan- 
tage in the use of baths, prolonged six, eight, or ten hours, 
with irrigation, according to the method employed in the treat- 
ment of fractures. 

A violent shock, physical or moral, has often been the means 
of curing hallucinations. 

Bleeding even to syncope in one case made the patient blind, 
but did not cure him of his hallucinations. 

Physical agents appear to act generally in calming the periods 
of excitement. 

Hallucinations are occasionally cured by an effort of nature 
alone. We have elsewhere noticed the case of a lady, with whom 
the malady, which had lasted nearly two years, intermitted every 
other day. 

Medicaments may effect a cure, not by their therapeutic effects, 
but by breaking the chain of ideas in the mind of the patient, as, 
for example, opium in greatly prolonging the sleep of an hallu- 
cinated person far beyond the time at which a particular symp- 
tom returns. 

Experience has not yet decided on the use of datura stramo- 
nium in cases of hallucination. 

Moral means may be exercised with great success, but they 
must not be relied on exclusively. In their selection, the mind, 
education, and nature of the delirium should be taken into con- 
sideration. 

That moral treatment, which, in following symptoms, hastens 
or retards its method according to circumstances, alters its 
plans according to persons, and proceeds with prudence, appears 
to us to unite the greatest chances in favor of recovery. 

Leuret's method (moral revulsion) is very difficult to apply to 
persons habituated to reflect, to compare, and to will. The 
obstacles encountered in persuading by reasoning, appear to us 
almost insurmountable with insane persons of the educated 
classes, especially when their prejudices are openly attacked ; 
we therefore think that this method should be restricted to a cer- 
tain number of cases evidenced by the social condition of the pa- 
tients, their general character, and the quality of their delirium. 

In the treatment of hallucinations, recourse must sometimes 
be had to physical means, sometimes to moral, and sometimes to 
the two influences united. 
32 



498 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

Simple hallucinations, such as exist with mental alienation, 
only require a use of the means we have just described; but 
these are not the only hallucinations ; there are others combined 
with diseases of a different order, such as catalepsy, epilepsy, 
hysteria, hypochondria, fevers, and acute inflammatory or chronic 
diseases, etc. Hallucinations which are manifested in the course 
of these diseases should be treated by methods more or less 
active ; often, such means alone as are usually directed against 
the diseases themselves. Moral treatment has been successfully 
applied in several instances. 

It is sometimes necessary to use therapeutic agents against 
hallucinations compatible with reason. 



CHAPTER XX. 

OF HALLUCINATIONS CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO MEDICAL 
JURISPRUDENCE. 

The hallucinated confounded with vagabonds, robbers, murderers, etc. — 1. In- 
fluence of hallucinations on the conduct during waking and sleeping — 2. Influ- 
ence of illusions under similar circumstances — 3. Of sequestration, commission 
of lunacy, and competency to testify — Hallucinations causes of injurious and 
dangerous actions, such as suicide, homicide, robbery, arson, challenges, duels, 
etc. — Facts — The occurrences which take place in maniacal delirium and in 
acute delirium are often the results of hallucinations and illusions — Sometimes 
hallucination is the real cause of acts performed under the influence of an 
illusion — The decisions caused by hallucinations are sometimes instantaneous 
— Certain circumstances, such as darkness, etc., appear to favor them — The 
hallucinations of sleep may occasion crimes — Medico-legal examination of 
sudden hallucinations — Instances of illusions which have caused crimes — The 
delirium of drunkards is very frequently accompanied by hallucinations and 
illusions — Hallucinations and illusions explain many actions which appear 
incomprehensible. 

A fatal destiny seems to pursue the hallucinated. If he 
escapes from the hospital, he finds the gates of the prison clos- 
ing on him. Such is, in fact, the nature of his disease, that he 
is regarded as a guilty man if he does not pass for a crazy man. 

How often, indeed, have we had an opportunity of remarking 
that men, charged with vagrancy, robbery, breaches of the 
peace, and murders, were only unfortunate persons who had 
yielded to the suggestions of hallucinations and insanity.* 

It is only a short time ago that the Gf-azette des Tribunaux 
related the misfortunes of a poor deranged man, confined at La 
Force as a vagabond : — 

Case CLXIII. Last week a man, about forty years old, 
named Auguste Victor Chevillard, appeared before the correc- 

* We protest against the too extended definition that has been given to 
the word monomania. There is no doubt that the aegis of insanity has 
frequently protected real criminals. 



500 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

tional tribunal, charged with vagrancy. The incoherence of 
his answers, his melancholy, his wandering gaze, gave the court 
reason to suppose that this man might not have the use of his 
senses ; and M. Brierre de Boismont was commissioned by the 
presiding judge, Salmon, to examine him, decide upon his men- 
tal state, and make his report on the subject to the court. 

At the hearing on this day, Dr. Brierre de Boismont re- 
ported as follows: "I went to the prison where Chevillard was 
confined, and talked long with him. I asked to what he at- 
tributed his misery and vagabond condition. To this question 
he replied, with beaming eyes, and rapid and violent gesticula- 
tion : 'It is my enemies who pursue me everywhere ; they have 
ruined me ; still, they are not satisfied ; they arrest me in the 
streets, and thrust me into prison.' — ' But who are these ene- 
mies?' — 'I do not see them, but I hear them; they talk to me, 
and whisper in my ears ; they would take all I have left ; but 
they shall not have it, even if they kill me, for I will swallow 
it with the last breath I draw. Such as you see me, I am yet 
richer than the Emperor of China and the King of Mogador; 
I possess the key of the treasures; and I can enrich whoever I 
will, and yet be no poorer.' 

" For a time," said M. de Boismont, "I coincided with the 
hallucinations of this poor man, and asked him where his trea- 
sures were. ' They are in Prussia,' he replied, with confidence, 
1 but I have never been there ; I have been farther — to Cal- 
cutta — but never to Prussia. I should want two thousand francs 
for the voyage and expenses ; my bitter enemies prevent me 
from finding as much.' ' Do you think that your enemies get 
into your prison ? If they do, I will give notice to the director, 
who will take precautions that you may be left in peace.' 'It 
would be needless ; they would come through the walls.' 

" On quitting la Force," continues M. de Boismont, " I went 
to Bicetre ; from 1830 to 1843, Chevillard had been received 
there seven times. The memoranda on the registers, written by 
several medical men in the house, proved that he had been fre- 
quently attacked, sometimes with a restless insanity, at others 
with melancholy ; and had been once brought in for an attempt 
on his life. I yesterday went again to see him at La Force ; he 
is under the same influence; his enemies continue to pursue 
him, and he still holds the key of his treasures. Such are the 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 501 

facts which I have collected. My opinion is, that this man is 
under the influence of hallucinations which disturb his reason. 
Perhaps, if he were subjected to a long treatment, he might at- 
tain to greater calmness, but he could never be trusted alone ; 
it would be best to send him back to Bicetre. 

" At this, Chevillard, who did not utter a word during the 
report of the doctor, said in a low voice : 4 I will go no more to 
Bicetre ; it is an inquisition ; they all say that I am mad. Well ! 
there is something for the unbelievers.' Saying this, he put 
into the clerk's hand a little square piece of paper, written on 
both sides. On the face was written : — 

" c 9th November, 1844. Whatever may be the opinion held 
of me, I engage to provide a happy fate and a prosperous and 
very agreeable life to the person who can lay out four or five 
thousand francs, and to give him a profit of from one to two 
hundred francs a day.' 

"On the reverse : — 

44 ' Whoever may have only two or three thousand francs to 
lay out, may easily and securely obtain a profit of from eight 
hundred to one thousand francs per month. 

44 i Seeing is believing ! ! ! 

44 ' Chevillard, 
" i Rue Saint- Jacques-la Boucherie, No. 14, 

a Paris (Discharged). 

44 The tribunal dismissed the case, and ordained that Chevil- 
lard should be placed at the disposal of the administrative 
authority."* 

And how, indeed, could it be otherwise ? If this man, who 
is convinced that he is surrounded with enemies; that he sees 
them before him, hears their threats, abuses, pursues, and en- 
deavors to strike and kill them, by a singular aberration of 
mind — which has been an object of study with us in our article 
on illusions — should transform the figures of his keepers into 
those of his imagined enemies, the most serious consequences 
might result from the error. 

Hallucinations in the example just given, have paralyzed the 
strength of the individual ; absorbed by his one idea, he cannot 

* Gazette des Tribunaux, Decembre, 1844. 



502 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

devote himself to any kind of labor; to such misery, and a 
forced vagrancy, a prison is an inevitable consequence. 

But these waking dreams may involve the most frightful mis- 
fortunes. Who does not recall the catastrophe of the Rue de la 
Fide'lete', where a man, under hallucination, massacred, in the 
wanderings of his reason, wife, children, and neighbors, and im- 
molated himself on this bloody altar ? 

Every paper recounts similar cases, and we lately read 
amongst them the following details : — 

Case CLXIV. One of those horrible dramas which terrify 
humanity, is thus related by the Brussels papers : — 

" A deplorable event yesterday morning horrified the inhabi- 
tants of the Quartier du Marche' au Fromage, in this city. 
Madame X. (a French woman, aged thirty-two), married, and 
having a pretty little girl of eighteen months, inhabited a cham- 
ber in this quarter. 

" Her husband, a professor, had been absent for several days 
at Tirlemont, where he expected a situation in a school ; his wife, 
whose religious ideas had for some time been very much excited, 
and had even on several occasions taken the form of hallucina- 
tions, was attacked during the night with a fit of homicidal 
monomania ; she thought she saw angels, who commanded her 
to kill her child in order that it might become an angel likewise ; 
her husband also appeared to her, crowned with white roses ; he 
was wounded, and held weapons in his hands. In this state, he 
informed her that he had destroyed himself in order to enter 
paradise, and invited her to kill her child and herself in order 
to rejoin him in the abodes of bliss. 

" This unfortunate woman soon executed the dreams of her 
diseased brain ; she smothered her child with her hands, after 
having vainly attempted to choke it with crumbs of bread. The 
poor little victim being dispatched, she endeavored to commit 
suicide, and stabbed herself in several places under the left 
breast with a small pocket-knife; but pain, and the instinct of 
self-preservation, doubtless, struggled against her monomania, 
and made her abandon this weapon. She then lay down by the 
corpse of her child, hoping that God would not long delay to 
call her to himself, and reunite her to her child. 

"In this melancholy situation she was discovered on Saturday 
morning. As soon as the authorities heard of it, the king's 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 503 

attorney, one of the justices of the peace, and Drs. Jolly and 
Vanderlaer visited the spot, and having decided on the mental 
state of this unhappy mother, she was conveyed to St. John's 
Hospital. 

"By a singular coincidence, the husband arrived unexpectedly 
at the very moment when his maniac wife and the corpse of 
his child were being conveyed to the hospital." 

These two examples, selected from many others, will serve as 
an introduction to the study of hallucinations considered in 
their relation to medical jurisprudence and civil institutions. 

The importance of this study has already been implied in its 
symptomatology and the specific cases given. It is beginning to 
be understood that a number of those strange acts, placed hereto- 
fore in the annals of crime, are referable to insanity, and, above 
all, to hallucinations. 

The subject is so highly interesting that we must enter fully 
upon its developments. We shall examine, first, the influence of 
hallucinations on the conduct, waking and sleeping; secondly, 
that of illusions under analogous circumstances ; and, thirdly, 
inquire at what point hallucinations demand sequestration and 
commission of lunacy, and whether this state of mind does not 
require the acts of the person under examination to be con- 
sidered invalid. 

Hallucinations may be the cause of many reprehensible and 
dangerous resolves. Some madmen commit suicide, in order to 
escape the vision which haunts them; others steal, because a 
voice constantly insists that the object they take belongs to 
them. Some are incendiaries; and a great number utter insults 
and menaces, strike, and even commit murder. 

A man may be found in a secluded spot with evident marks of 
having met with a violent death. The first thought that occurs 
to the mind is, that a crime has been committed ; but it may have 
been a suicide, and this unhappy termination may have been the 
result of a false sensation. A clerk, believes that he sees the 
gendarmes surrounding him, to seize and bear him away to the 
scaffold. Wishing to save his wife from dishonor, he stands a 
whole night, whilst she sleeps, with an open razor at her throat. 
Fortunately his idea takes another direction, and he casts the 
weapon from him. On the following day, still tormented by 
the sight of his persecutors, and unable longer to support it, he 



504 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

drowns himself. A merchant, who had hitherto enjoyed the 
esteem of all who knew him, heard voices which reproached him 
with an evil action. These voices did not leave him an instant 
of repose. His family and friends endeavored to comfort him. 
He appeared to have obtained calmness of mind, and went up 
stairs to go to rest. A few minutes afterwards it was dis- 
covered that he had hung himself. 

Case CLXV. A lady had brought up an orphan girl, whom 
she treated with great kindness. Some rabbits were given into 
the charge of the child. An idea came into her head that if 
she killed them she would be driven away. The probable con- 
sequences of this evil action acted so forcibly on her imagina- 
tion that she finally heard a voice desiring her to kill these 
animals. The more terrified she became at the counsel, the 
louder rang the voice in her ear, for she thought of nothing 
else. Thus continually tormented, and not being able to escape 
from her idea, she thought to rid herself of it by yielding, and 
the rabbits were destroyed. Long afterwards this unhappy girl 
committed suicide.* 

Every one must have occasionally remarked the sudden rise of 
painful ideas in the mind, whose persistence is really strange. 
It seems impossible to drive them away. The force of evidence 
can alone triumph over them. This singular state lasts some- 
times several days, and particularly with nervous persons. But 
if by some means the idea is not repulsed it becomes fixed, and 
the organization is subdued beneath its tyrannical power. The 
irresistibility of certain ideas is proved by a thousand examples. 
The writer of Pinel threw himself into the Thames ; and when 
he was asked to give a reason for this act, he replied that he 
had been driven to it in spite of himself. The barber spoken of 
by Forbes, made a gash in the throat of a person whom he 
was shaving, but he could not explain why he did it, etc.f 

The examples of this class are numerous, and there is no 
doubt that insanity and hallucinations make up a great number 
of the list of suicides exhibited yearly in the public records. 

* Chardel, Essai de Psychologie Physiologique, 3d edition, 1 vol. in 8vo. 
Paris, 1844, page 205. 

f Boileau de Castelnau, De la Folie instantanee au point de vue medico- 
judiciaire (Annal. Med. Psych, t. iii. ann. 1851, pp. 307 and 479). 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 505 

In each of the cases just cited, the cause of suicide was evident. 
But it is not always thus ; if the clerk had cut the throat of his 
wife and had then drowned himself, it is probable this bloody 
tragedy would have been attributed to any but the real motives. 

Again, suicide may be occasioned by a voice apparently from 
the street, calling to the hallucinated ; he, hastening to obey 
the call, will be precipitated from the window, under the idea 
that he is walking out of his room. A madman imagines that 
he sees a bright chariot waiting to transport him to heaven ; he 
opens his window, walks quietly out to mount the chariot, and 
falls on the pavement. 

Suicide often occurs in maniacal delirium and acute delirium, 
which accompany febrile affections. When it has been possible 
to discover the origin of these catastrophes, it has constantly 
been found that they were the result of hallucinations and illu- 
sions, which engendered panic terrors ; and that there are, as 
regards motives, fewer suicides than attempts, induced by a 
sentiment of self-preservation, to escape from chimerical dangers. 
I remember, says Marc, a patient attacked with typhus, when 
that disease raged in the city, who would have thrown himself 
from the window had he not been prevented. When this deli- 
rium was reduced, he recollected perfectly that he thought him- 
self pursued by a horrible phantom, from which he was endeav- 
oring to escape.* 

If hallucinations be a cause of suicide, they no less fre- 
quently occasion attempts against the lives of others. Sad and 
melancholy ideas, and fear, concur singularly in producing these 
acts. The fear of the police and of the pursuit of enemies, has 
in a great measure taken the place of the dread of the devil and 
of spirits ; although, for several years past, demonomania has 
again dawned on the horizon. Nothing is more common than 
to be consulted on the cases of madmen who think themselves a 
mark for persecution, and whose death is being sought for by 
poisoning or assassination. I was called to attend a lady, who 
appeared in full possession of her reason. She said to me, with 
the greatest coolness : " Sir, eight days since, in going to mass, 
I perceived that I was followed by ill-looking men. On leaving 

* Marc, de la Folie consider&e dans ses rapports avec les questions 
medico-judiciaires, 2 vol. 8vo. Paris, 1840, t. ii. p. 156. 



506 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

the church, I found three of them lying in ambush in the Rue 
de l'Ouest ; one attempted to rush upon me. The day before 
yesterday, the porter of my house placed a ladder against the 
wall, in order to enter my room ; but on seeing me, he retreated. 
Everybody is trying to harm me ; I am surrounded with assas- 
sins." This variety of monomania almost always exists with 
hallucinations of sight and hearing. 

The patients who are tormented by these ideas, imagine that 
improper words and insults are whispered into their ears. They 
assert that they are spoken ill of, and looked on askance. In 
order to escape these annoyances, some seek solitude, change 
places incessantly, and endeavor to conceal their traces; others, 
of a bolder character, face their imagined enemies and challenge 
them, who no doubt fall under the blows of these madmen. 

Case CLXYI. "In 1831," says M. Gauthier, "I was on my 
way from Lyons to St. Amour. We were four in the coach ; a 
priest and myself in the coupe, and an officer and another per- 
son in the interior. This officer had fallen into serious troubles ; 
he had been imprisoned, dismissed from his regiment, and sent 
to Strasbourg. He entered the coach very quietly ; but we had 
scarcely gone half a league, when he uttered violent shrieks. 
He said he was insulted, and demanded reparation. He called 
to the conductor, and made him stop the carriage, when he 
hastily mounted on the imperial, where he thought he heard the 
voice of a man named Pouzet, with whom he had had some differ- 
ences in the regiment ; he sought him everywhere. Not finding 
him, he re-entered the carriage in the greatest agitation ; con- 
tinuing to hear the voice of this individual, who still insulted 
him, and told him that he had been discharged. He became 
much enraged, and insisted on fighting him. "We arrived at 
Meximieux at midnight ; whilst the horses were being changed, 
this unfortunate being got out, drew his sword, and exclaimed : 
* Pouzet, come out from your concealment ! Come and fight ! 
These gentlemen will be witnesses. If you do not show yourself, 
and I assassinate you, the blame will rest on your cowardice.' 
As Pouzet did not appear, the officer again mounted the impe- 
rial, and thrust his sword several times into the packages with the 
idea of stabbing his enemy. 'Where has he hidden himself V 
he exclaimed: ' I hear the coward ; he insults me, but I cannot 
find him,' 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 507 

" Finally, he again got into the carriage, but his agitation and 
fury lasted until our arrival at Buoy, where we stopped for 
breakfast. The priest endeavored to calm him — begged him to 
forget his injuries, and pardon his enemy. * I consent, Mon- 
sieur l'Abbey said the officer; ' be our mediator. But let him 
show himself ! — let him acknowledge his wrongs ! — let him stay 
his insults ! Do you not hear the coward ? He continues to 
insult me ; he says I have been discharged ; it is false — I have 
only changed my regiment. Pouzet, show yourself! come and 
fight ! If you do not, I will report you everywhere as a villain. 
They will spit in your face, and tear off your epaulettes.' We 
offered him breakfast, but he declined. This agitated state 
lasted until our arrival at Lons-le-Saulnier, where he was taken 
to the hospital."* 

With the progress of the moral affection, all the means em- 
ployed by these patients to escape the plots of their enemies are 
ineffectual. They introduce themselves into their dwellings, 
annoy them constantly ; speak ironical, injurious, and menacing 
words ; appear to them in the streets, and in the silence of night. 
Frequently, illusion is combined with hallucination, and they 
see enemies in every person whom they meet. 

When the disorder has reached this point, the patient becomes 
so exasperated that he resolves to escape this constant and 
frightful torment by suicide. This result more frequently 
takes place when he thinks that his enemies wish to be rid of 
him by means of poison. He then frequently refuses all kinds 
of nourishment, because it tastes badly, or has a suspicious odor, 
and thus he dies of hunger. At other times the insane, furious 
at these persecutions, form projects of vengeance, strike, wound, 
or kill the first person whom they meet, and who, as they say, 
pays for the rest. Under some circumstances, they conceive 
a hatred for their nearest relative, or the person whom they 
most frequently see, and their act in this case may impose on 
inexperienced minds, who look on it as an act of revenge. 

Insane hallucinated persons of this class are in general very 
formidable, and the examples we shall give will justify our asser- 
tion. 

Case CLXVII. Mr. R. de Gr. was engaged in an office under 

* Bottex, op. cit. 



508 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

government, and inhabited, previously to his arrival in Paris, a 
provincial town, where his mode of life excited much attention. 
He suddenly changed his hotel, and took his meals out, no one 
knew where. At times, he cooked his food during the night; and 
when he dined in town, he would not touch any dish until it had 
been tasted by others. Such was his mistrust that he closed 
his doors with several locks, and made those who came to see 
him wait a long time for admission. In order to defy curiosity, 
he spoke of projected voyages which he had no intention of 
making. His gloomy and uncourteous character had created 
antipathies towards him, which his superior desired to avert by 
speaking kindly with him on the subject ; but he coolly replied, 
that there was an association of poisoners, headed by one Me- 
rope (an imaginary personage), whose agents pursued him every- 
where, and had partially succeeded in their attempts on him, 
since he suffered the most dreadful pains in his bowels. 

Shortly after his arrival in Paris, he told the clerks in his 
office that he had seen a man hidden behind a hedge, who was 
about to fire on him, or at least who had his gun pointed, and 
that on his approach the murderer disappeared. He added his 
assurance that a man, whom he could not recognize, had come 
in the night to saw the bars which closed his room-door, and he 
asked the loan of a pair of pistols from one of the clerks, in 
order to defend himself against the attacks of this person. 
Going one clay to St. Germain by the railroad, he saw several 
men in the same carriage with himself who looked at him in a 
very threatening manner ; he left them, took a wagon, and on 
the following day bought a pair of pistols. And since then 
some person had attempted to stab him with a poniard. 

This man saw none but enemies surrounding him, who spread 
calumnious reports, and endeavored to annoy and poison him. 
Every one pointed at him, and treated him as a madman, on 
account of his fears and his mode of life. Above all, he accused 
one of the superior clerks of having seriously injured him, by 
revealing his troubles, which he had confided to him under the 
seal of secrecy. 

Six years previously, being at Fontainebleau, he heard two 
Englishmen reading a mysterious letter, in which neither himself 
nor any one of his acquaintance were mentioned; but the terms 
in which it was conceived, and the kind of conversation held by 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 509 

the foreigners, inspired him with the belief that persons were 
suborned to destroy him. 

This hallucinated man, who always carried arms, said that on 
several occasions he had been on the point of using them, but 
waited until the individuals were near enough for him to touch 
them before he fired. 

It was under the influence of this idea that M. R. de Gr. 
called on M. D., who was head of a government office, and, in 
a state of great excitement, making him the personification of 
all his imagined enemies, fired two pistols at him, and then 
attempted suicide. 

In listening to the recital of these events, all medical men 
were agreed in recognizing an hallucinated monomaniac. It is 
important to notice that this idea of poisoning, and these con- 
tinual appearances of evil-disposed persons, which had lasted 
during eight years, had not prevented M. R. de Gr. from filling 
with distinction the administrative career which he had em- 
braced, and that, on the eve of his arrest, he was engaged in 
drawing up a work which did not betray the slightest derange- 
ment of mind. 

The council- chamber of the highest tribunal in Paris, after 
a long examination, and a medico-legal inquest, gave a verdict 
of acquittal, and placed him at the disposal of the prefect of 
police.* 

Case CLXVIII. During the month of May, the commissary 
of police of the seventh arrondisse?nent was called on to establish 
a murder. The culprit appeared deeply afflicted at his crime. 
He declared to the officer that he had struck M. M., because 
every one drove him to it ; that he had no angry feeling against 
him, but wished to revenge himself on somebody. The evidence 
given by the witnesses proved that, after having labored zeal- 
ously for seventeen years in a warehouse, he had suddenly 
quitted it, because offensive proposals were whispered into his 
ears, and he was exposed to ridicule ; since then he believed 
himself to be pursued by gendarmes and police officers. 

To the inquiry, why he struck M. M. with an iron instrument 
freshly sharpened, he replied: "I was pursued by evil-disposed 

* Brierre de Boismont, Medecine-Legale (Annales Medico-Psycholog.), 
September No. 1843. 



510 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

persons, of whom one seized me by the throat in the Faubourg 
St. Denis. Some months before, I observed five or six indi- 
viduals walking behind me, and saying: c He must be killed ! he 
must be killed !' I could not walk in the street without having 
my ears and feelings insulted; I was called assassin, thief, etc.; it 
was for this reason that I sharpened the point of a file, for, I 
said, if they want to kill me, I must defend myself." 

From the report, which we gave in concert with M. Ferrus, 
Soyez was sent to Bic^tre, where he passed several months in a 
state of apathy. We learned on one of our visits that he had 
struck a knife into one of the attendants, although he had no 
complaint to make against him; the affair was related as follows: 
" Two months since, Soyez approached me with a very cheerful 
air ; he had made but a few steps, when, looking at himself in 
a glass, he turned suddenly round on me, and struck me so 
violently with a knife in the left side that the blade was broken 
against a key, and some money which I fortunately had in my 
pocket. Whilst he was striking, and subsequently, he reproached 
me with having burned him, and also his wife and child. My 
opinion is, that he has hallucinations." 

On being interrogated, Soyez acknowledged that he had 
formerly been insane, but had been cured. When spoken to 
about the attendant whom he had stabbed, he allowed that he 
had wandered for a moment; but added, "he burned me, and I 
reproached him; besides, he is always burning me." He after- 
wards spoke to the doctors of persons who jumped upon him, 
and of extraordinary things which he saw during the night. 

No doubt could exist as to the mental condition of Soyez. 
It was under the influence of his fixed idea, and his hallucina- 
tions, that he had twice been incited to such serious actions ; 
and the physicians decided that he was not responsible in either 
case ; that it was due to society that so dangerous a person, 
whose cure was uncertain, should be placed in confinement. 
These resolutions were adopted by the attorney-general, and we 
recently learned that the mental disease of Soyez had increased 
and was considered incurable.* 

These two examples suffice to exhibit the dangerous character 

* Brierre de Boismont, Medecine-Legale (Annales Medico-Psycholo- 
giques), July, 1844. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 511 

of this form of disease. In fact, the greater number of crimes 
committed by the insane have been by melancholy hallucinated 
monomaniacs. 

We think it right to add to these observations of our own, the 
following, one of which appeared in the Droit, Bulletin des Tri- 
bunaux, and the other in the Annates oV Hygiene. The affair 
brought the crew of the ship Le Severe before the assizes at 
Bourbon. A circumstance which added greatly to the interest 
of the trial was, that the captain of the* vessel, M. L., had, since 
his arrival in the colony, betrayed evident signs of mental alien- 
ation, and that without any reason, assigned or suspected, had 
fired twice on a peaceable citizen. A report of three physicians 
declared him to be attacked by homicidal monomania. The fol- 
lowing is a statement of the facts : — 

Case CLXIX. Captain L., during his stay at Cette, believed 
that insults and menaces were addressed to him, which induced 
him to stand armed on the bridge all night. 

The vessel stood to sea for Bourbon. During the voyage, 
many distressing events occurred ; the captain on several occa- 
sions struck the sailors until blood flowed ; and many other cir- 
cumstances were charged upon him. They deposed that he 
looked at them suspiciously, talked often to himself, said that he 
heard provocations and insults which no one had addressed to 
him ; and that one day, without any reason, he had put his pis- 
tol to the throat of the cabin-boy. 

The captain, on his side, complained of the insults to which 
he had been constantly subjected. Being pressed to state his 
motive for firing on a person whom he scarcely knew, he 
very coolly asserted that for some time he had distinctly heard 
the voice of his wife (the trial was occurring in Bourbon, and 
his wife was in France), calling to him from the cellar of the 
house where he lodged, and imploring his help ; that he had 
spoken to several public functionaries to have search made, but 
they had paid no attention to him ; that he had threatened them 
for thus neglecting their public duties ; and that after he had 
fired on one in particular, who had provoked him, he had been 
taken to the hospital, where they had attempted to poison him 
with a glass of tisane. 

A deep feeling of pity ran through the court at this statement. 
Thus coolly asserting this nonsense about his wife, who pursues 



512 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

him, and whom he cannot find, and about menaces of death, of 
which he is the object, and yet on other points talking rationally. 
It may be supposed that if this disposition existed previously 
to the scene which caused his arrest, it also influenced him in 
the menaces of which he stated himself to be the subject, on the 
part of his crew. 

The charge was brought forward by the attorney-general, and 
the defence conducted by M. Mdnardiere. After a strict exami- 
nation, the court withdrew to deliberate, and an unanimous ver- 
dict of acquittal was the result.* 

Much was said of the serious injury done in this case to dis- 
cipline. There can be no doubt that the safety both of the ves- 
sel and crew were endangered by the monomaniac.f 

Case CLXX. J. B. D. was accused of having killed his wife 
during the night of the 3d or 4th of May, 1828. A maternal 
uncle of his had been deranged. His intellect was not greatly 
developed; nevertheless, he had profited by the education he 
had received. His habits had always been regular ; he had been 
married for several years, and lived happily with his wife. 

The mayor of his commune having given, on occasion of the 
fete of St. Charles (1827), a feast to the firemen of the town, 
was much joked by his companions. D., irritated by their 
remarks, and perhaps elevated by wine, drew his sword on the 
drummer, which gave rise to a brawl. Since that time he had 
appeared moody and suspicious. Towards the close of Decem- 
ber following, he awoke one night with a start, and complained 
of being ill. A medical man was called in, who considered that 
he had a gastric affection, accompanied by delirium. This doc- 
tor has since stated that D. declined taking the medicines he 
ordered, saying that he was leagued with his wife and his father 
to destroy him. 

From that period his character as well as his habits changed. 
He became gloomy, suspicious, irritable, and passionate ; he 
abandoned his religious duties, neglected his field labor, and 
drank much ; suspected the fidelity of his wife ; lived alone, 

* Le Droit, Bulletin des Tribunaux, 21st Feb. 1844— Court of Assize of 
the Island of Bourbon. 

t Brierre de Boismont, Observations medico-legales sur les monomanes 
tristes, hallucines. Gazette des Hopitaux civils et militaires, 10th Octo- 
ber, 1843. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 513 

shunned those with whom he was accustomed to associate, went 
out but seldom, and frequently exhibited fears that his life was 
in danger. Overpowered by this chimerical fear, he spoke con- 
stantly of enemies and plots, and persuaded himself that a man 
named Robert — of whom he had often spoken both before and 
after the 3d of May, 1828, in his conversations, fits of anger, 
letters, and evidence — was the chief of the conspiracy hatched 
against him. His old companions, his friends, his father, and 
his wife, were by turns ranked amongst the conspirators ; and 
yet on every other subject he appeared rational. In one of 
these paroxysms, during which his delirium was augmented, and 
his fears and suspicions increased, he swallowed sulphuric acid, 
not being able, as he said, to resist the torments which he expe- 
rienced, and wishing to be rid of his enemies. This attempt at 
suicide took place in the spring of 1827. 

The medical men who attended D., at the commencement of 
his malady, after his attempt at suicide, and since that time, 
attested that he had a mental alienation, which they called 
melancholy with delirium, characterized by imaginary fears, 
conviction that his death was being sought for, frequent fits of 
weeping, the pursuit of men, etc. Some witnessed to having 
seen D. hide himself behind the house door, or run away, when- 
ever any one called. Others had seen him in the fields making 
strange gestures, and talking to himself. 

On the 3d of May, 1828, D. passed the evening in company 
with his wife and a third person, until nine o'clock ; nothing 
indicated the disquiet and restlessness of a person about to 
commit a double crime (his wife being pregnant). He embraced 
her, and invited her to supper, after which they retired to rest. 

On the following morning, the 4th of May, the wife was found 
dead in her bed ; a napkin was spread over the corpse, and a 
cross laid thereon. Her husband had gone away with his 
father's horse. The clothes which he had worn on the preceding 
day were found covered with blood in the cellar. After a search 
of nine days, he was found, and the following facts gathered 
from himself and others. Having killed his sleeping wife with 
a mallet, which he fetched out of the yard, he went to the 
wardrobe for a napkin, spread it over the body, and placed upon 
it a cross, which was on the mantel-piece, washed his hands in a 
tub, took off his blood-stained clothes, which he threw into the 
33 



514 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

cellar, stocked himself ■with money, took his father's horse, 
closed the door of the house, the key of which he hid, and fled 
across the fields, avoiding the high roads. He reached an inn, 
ate heartily, and drank two bottles of wine, leaving articles in 
the inn by which he could be recognized, and went off. For 
nine days he concealed himself, and was arrested on the 11th of 
May, having both said and done things which betrayed him. 

On being delivered up to justice, letters were found upon him, 
which he had written during his nine days' flight. Two of these 
were addressed to the king; in them, his enemies were denounced, 
but at the same time his Majesty was entreated not to punish 
them. The others were for two of his relatives, in which he 
confessed the murder which he had committed, and demanded 
a passport for a foreigner under a false name. 

In his examination, D. gave all the details of the murder and 
the precautions which he had taken to avoid arrest; but he 
wandered as to the motives which had induced him to it, and gave 
several different reasons. Now, he pretended that he was intoxi- 
cated; then, that he was angry, because his wife had refused to 
give him money; and, again, that he was exasperated and irri- 
tated by the bad advice which was given to his wife, who, never- 
theless, was very virtuous; finally, he accused his enemies of 
having tempted him to it, in order to destroy him, and particu- 
larly accused Robert. 

During his imprisonment, D. wrote several times to his father, 
to the magistrates, to his medical attendant, etc. All these 
letters resembled each other in their incoherence, their length, 
the repetition of similar ideas in excusing himself or accusing his 
enemies, especially Robert, or in attempting to excite pity in his 
behalf. His excuses, regrets, accusations, requests, and recom- 
mendations were ridiculous, extravagant, and highly unbecoming 
one in his position. It was perfectly evident from these letters, 
that he had no moral consciousness of the double crime he had 
committed, nor the punishment it deserved. 

The attorney-general gave a requisition that no proceedings 
could be instituted against him so long as he was declared 
insane. The court thought that the proceedings did not suffi- 
ciently establish his insanity at the period of committing the 
crime, since the precautions which he had taken to escape the 
pursuit of justice, proved that he then had consciousness of a 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 515 

crime committed, and of a punishment consequent thereon. Upon 
this, on the 14th of August, 1828, an order was given to arraign 
D. for the murder of his wife. The court, by a decree of the fol- 
lowing 12th of September, ordered an additional investigation. 

In consequence of this judgment, D. was sent to Paris, and 
placed in the insane division at Bicetre, where he could be 
closely watched by the experienced undersigned. 

During the first few weeks of his stay at Bicetre, D. remained 
quite alone, took no exercise, never spoke, and appeared in a 
stupor, wept long and often, particularly when questioned re- 
lative to the murder which he had committed, the motives 
which led him to it, his actual position, etc., when his face 
would become much flushed. If pressed with questions, he 
would accuse his enemies, particularly Robert, of having led 
him into these criminal paths. He spoke of the murder of his 
wife as of a thing in which a third person was culpable ; and 
loudly demanded his freedom, saying: "It is not my fault." 
He also wrote several letters, which resembled in all points 
those which he wrote before his removal to Bicetre. On other 
subjects neither his acts nor remarks were irrational. 

After remaining for some months in the hospital, he became 
more communicative, took more exercise, conversed more readily 
with the attendants and the patients, and even argued with 
them on matters foreign to his position. He wept more rarely, 
excepting when he was questioned as to the cause of his being 
in the hospital. But the acuteness of his replies proved that he 
was aware of his position in regard to the law. He occupied 
himself with manual labor and learned to net purses. 

On the 14th of April, 1829, a great change was observed in 
D. ; he became restless and appeared distressed.* It was evident 
that he had hallucinations of hearing. He complained that the 
inmates of the hospital said disagreeable things to him as they 
passed him, and expressed dissatisfaction towards some of the 
patients with whom he had argued, but he had never either 
disputed or quarrelled with them. 

On the 16th of April, he requested to be shut up ; and gave 

* This sudden alteration in the habits of an insane person deserves 
particular notice. Whenever we have observed it in our establishment, 
the individual has attempted suicide, escape, etc. 



516 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

to the physician, attending the insane in the hospital, one of 
the undersigned, a crochet needle, wishing by that means to 
show his unwillingness to harm any one. "I do not desire," he 
repeated, "to harm any one." 

On the 18th of April, D. went to rest, without the keepers 
having remarked more agitation in him than in the preceding 
<Jays. During the night he left the dormitory, in which he 
slept with other patients, under some pretext, took a broom- 
handle which he found outside, and with it struck a patient who 
was sleeping in the sixth bed from his. 

The neighbor of the person he attacked, awakened by the 
noise, called for help; D. struck at him until he hid himself 
under the covering, and then recommenced his assault on his 
first victim. The attendants hurried in and seized him ; he al- 
lowed the strait waistcoat to be put on, wept, repented, accused 
those who had driven him to it, and said that he heard voices, 
which told him to be revenged, as some one wanted to kill him ; 
he added that it was well they bound him, for he intended to 
have treated two or three others in the same way. 

After this fresh murder, he became calm, slept well, and ate 
well, made no effort to rid himself of the strait waistcoat, wept 
frequently, especially when reminded of his actions ; turned 
red, excused himself, and accused others. It was remarked that 
after this second murder, he appeared to fear the punishment 
reserved for criminals. 

Such are the facts relative to the accused. They may easily 
be classed in two series ; the one would induce the belief that 
D. was sane when he murdered his wife, and was conscious of 
having committed a crime when he fled ; the other would seem 
to prove that he was insane when he committed the crime, and 
that even during his flight he had not a very clear perception 
of the position in which he had placed himself. 

First class of facts. — On the 3d May, 1828, D. gave no signs 
of delirium nor irritation ; and retired peaceably to rest with 
his wife. These circumstances did not escape the witness who 
had passed the evening of the 3d May with him and his victim. 
After the murder, D. took measures to avoid the pursuit of jus- 
tice. The precautions seemed to prove a consciousness of the 
crime he had committed, and that he feared the punishment 
consequent thereon. In the different interrogatories which he 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 517 

underwent, he appeared to have his reason ; and also during his 
stay in Bic^tre, at least neither his words nor actions resembled 
the usual ones of the insane patients. The numerous letters 
which he wrote proved that he was not deprived of all intellect. 

Second class of facts. — D. had a maternal uncle who was 
insane ; consequently, he was predisposed to insanity. He had 
never betrayed any perverse inclination, and was of regular 
habits until the close of 1826, when suddenly his character and 
habits underwent an entire alteration ; since which time, he 
evinced many symptoms of madness. The derangement of his 
mind was verified by the certificates of three physicians who 
attended him, and by public notoriety. D. was a monomaniac, 
he believed that he had enemies, that they desired to be rid of 
him, and to kill him. He was convinced that his friends, his 
father, and his wife, plotted against him. His delirium was 
remittent, and increased from time to time. 

In the spring of 1827, he had attempted suicide in order to 
escape the conspiracies of his pretended enemies. In the spring 
of 1828, after having embraced his wife, he went peaceably to 
rest with her, without provocation or anger; and awakened by 
some distressing dream, or by his imaginary fears (let it be re- 
membered that at the outset of his disease he had awakened 
with a start), his reason wandered, he saw in his wife, lying by 
his side, a conspirator ; it was necessary to deliver himself, and 
he struck the unfortunate woman, who was fast asleep, not with 
any instrument of death that was within the house, but with a 
mallet, which he went into the yard to fetch. Far from flying 
instantly, he delayed his departure, searched in the wardrobe 
for a napkin, with which he covered the corpse of his victim, 
and placed a cross upon it. But then his. fury having no longer 
an object, the sight of the corpse made a powerful impression 
on the murderer ; the delirium ceased, reason awoke, and the 
unhappy man comprehended all the horror of the act he had 
committed, foresaw the consequences, fled, and endeavored to 
escape the pursuit of justice. 

D. experienced that which has been noticed in many insane 
persons, namely, that after a violent physical or moral impres- 
sion, or the accomplishment of a design conceived during deli- 
rium, they appear to recover suddenly the use of their reason, 
and act almost if not quite in the same manner as if they had 



518 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

never lost it. (Insane persons have been instantaneously cured 
by a powerful moral impression.) 

Although D. took great precautions in his flight, he neverthe- 
less left traces by which he could be recognized, which would 
not have been done by a man with the full use of his reason, nor 
by one who considered himself a criminal. Thus, although he 
hid his blood-stained clothing, it was in his own cellar ; and al- 
though he fled, it was on his father's horse. He left articles in 
an inn which would betray him, and carried letters about his 
person which convicted him. When arrested, he gave a detailed 
account of the murder ; and gave several reasons for it, which 
were evidently false. In prison and in the hospital, the letters 
which he wrote bore the impress of a disordered mind. In the 
following year, the spring of 1829, he became restless, and ap- 
peared to have hallucinations ; four days afterwards, he went 
quietly to bed, and during the night killed one of the patients, 
not with any instruments at hand in the dormitory, but with a 
stick which he fetched from another room — not after a quarrel, 
an affray, or a fit of anger, but during the sleep of his victim. 

From the identity of the season and the hour in which the 
two murders were committed, the choice of the instruments of 
death, the absence of all anger or provocation, the sleep of the 
victims, the calm state of the murderer during the nights of the 
3d of May, 1828, and the 18th of April, 1829— from the iden- 
tity, we say, of the circumstances, we draw the inference that 
D. was excited to commit both the murders by the delirium to 
which he had been a prey since the close of 1826, and that, in 
the commission of these two acts, he was not in the possession 
of moral liberty. 

We think, therefore, that hereditary disposition, the conduct 
of D. during his stay at Bic&tre, the treatment which he under- 
went for insanity before the Sd of May, 1826, the report of the 
faculty who attended him before that period, and the circum- 
stances attending the action imputed to him, prove that D. was 
laboring under mental alienation when he committed the mur- 
der of which he is accused ; that the precautions taken by him 
on the night of the Sd of May, 1828, and since that time, to 
elude the pursuit of justice, also prove that the criminal had not 
the right use of his reason, and is accordant to a state of de- 
mentia, taking that word in the sense of civil law, and not in 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 519 

that accepted by the faculty, who give to that state the name of 
monomania. 

Resolved in Paris, the 6th of July, 1829. 

(Signed,) Esquirol, 

Ferrus. 

An extract from the verdict in the case goes to show that the 
court, after deliberation, consider sufficient proof has been esta- 
blished, that Jacques Jean-Baptiste I), was in a state of dementia 
on the night between the 3d and 4th of May, 1826, in which 
the action imputed to him was committed, and that thus, accord- 
ing to the terms 84 of the penal code, there is neither crime 
nor offence, and that no farther proceedings can be instituted 
against D. The court, nevertheless, orders that he shall be 
placed at the disposal of the King's attorney, who will take ne- 
cessary measures for the safety of the public and of the accused. 

This case, which we have given in all its details, because it 
appeared an excellent type, presents to us a fresh example of the 
danger of hallucinations and illusions in melancholy monomania. 
Daily experience proves that these mad persons are convinced 
they receive insults, are made mouths at, that the countenances 
of those around them express hate, and a desire to harm them; 
or they take them for devils, monsters, etc. It is evident that, 
when D. killed his wife and the insane patient by his side, he 
obeyed hallucinations of hearing, and probably also illusions, 
as in the case of Soyez. It is extremely probable that these 
two murders, executed at long intervals, would have been fol- 
lowed up by other catastrophes, if the most rigorous confine- 
ment had not been maintained. 

G-alignani 8 Messenger published the following case: — 

Case CLXXI. On the 25th of November, 1840, Dr. Pearce, 
author of several estimable medical works, was cited before the 
central criminal court for having fired at his wife with intent to 
kill her, and was acquitted on a plea of insanity. He was sent 
to Bedlam, where he has since remained, his fixed idea being 
that his wife desired his death, and had paid several persons to 
destroy him in some way or other, but chiefly, by always giving 
him a damp or wet bed. For some time he obstinately refused 
to quit the gallery in which his cell was situated. 

In a letter, which he addressed to the manager of the hos- 



520 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

pita], Pearce rested bis opinion on apparently very logical rea- 
soning: "If," said he, alluding to the deposition of some of 
the witnesses, who stated that, at different times, they had felt 
his bed and had found it perfectly dry, "the simple act of putting 
the hand on a damp bed, or even the impression which a man 
may receive on lying down, be infallible, how does it happen that 
travellers are so often crippled with rheumatism, or lose their 
lives from having passed the night in damp sheets? In truth, 
the injury of which I complain is no illusion ; it is a real fact, 
susceptible of proof, if my own evidence could be received, 
instead of being distorted by the falsehood of those in whose 
power I am. Assuredly, I should grossly deceive myself, if I 
affirmed that my bed is of straw, instead of wool ; or if I pro- 
fessed to be a prophet, the pope, or Sir Astley Cooper; but I 
do not believe in such nonsense. My mind is healthy, calm, 
and capable of reflection, and I entreat you to distinguish 
between things impossible and those which are real. It is 
an all-important point in my unhappy position. It will perhaps 
be said that I have elsewhere accused persons of wetting my 
bed ; it is true. In the insane asylum at Uxbridge, from whence 
I was brought here, my bed was almost constantly wet during 
three months, and I should have died, had I not taken the pre- 
caution to sleep on a large chest, which is now placed in the 
wareroom of the hospital, and in which I kept my clothing. 
Frequently, at this period, the thermometer was at eight and 
ten degrees below zero." 

In this letter, Dr. Pearce desired to have a lock to his cell, in 
order to prevent this continual exhibition of ill-will: and it 
closed with these lines: "I implore you to have pity on my 
miserable condition. I have had some right to the title of gentle- 
man, and have enjoyed the esteem of highly estimable persons. 
I am now, by a train of unhappy circumstances, imprisoned in 
a large hospital ; torn from wife, children, and the comforts of 
social life, constrained to live with enemies suborned by the 
state, with beggars, and with madmen." 

On being brought before the Committee appointed to examine 
the case, Dr. Pearce replied very rationally to the questions 
which were addressed to him. He declared that, since his mar- 
riage, which took place at Boulogne, he had been constantly ill- 
treated by his wife ; and that, on one occasion, she had struck 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 521 

hirn. He complained of having been, against his inclination, an 
accomplice of Oxford, the assassin of the queen, to whom, how- 
ever, he had taught French, and whose mind he had attempted 
to soften. Oxford had revealed to him particulars of great 
importance relative to the crime he had committed, which he, 
Pearce, thought it his duty to communicate to the Secretary of 
State. With this view, he had written, in Latin, a letter con- 
taining all the details; unhappily, it had been taken from him, 
and he did not know if it had reached the office in Downing 
Street. He also desired to make known how Oxford boasted 
of having deceived Sir A. Morrison, Dr. Monroe, and the jury 
in persuading them that he was insane. 

Dr. Pearce added that this was what he wished to reveal to 
the Secretary of State. His letter was produced against him. 
The jury then proceeded in his examination. He persisted in 
saying his bed was wet, that deleterious substances were intro- 
duced into his clothes, and that a conspiracy existed against 
him. He drew from his pocket a small packet, which contained 
a piece of one of his shirts, and a snuffbox which also contained 
some other fragments ; these he desired should be given to Pro- 
fessor Faraday, or some other celebrated chemist, to be analyzed. 
The jury decided that Dr. Pearce was deranged, and had been 
so since the month of October, 1840 (Britannia.)* 

If we were not fearful of multiplying cases of this character, 
we could relate the history of MacNaghten, the assassin of 
Mr. Drummond, who was also persuaded that he was surrounded 
by evil-disposed persons who threatened him, and that he was 
surrounded by strange faces.f 

It appears very probable that great political assassinations 
have been committed by hallucinated persons, and that in many 
cases, the impassibility of these persons under punishment has 
been the result of the diseased state of their minds, and of 
anaesthesia, so common amongst melancholy monomaniacs. 

M. Bazin relates, in his Histoire de la Fronde, the assertion 
which Ravaillac made on his examination, that, some days prior 



* Galignani's Messenger, 27th December, 1843. 

f In a visit made in 1850 to Bedlam, MacNaghten was found in a state 
of imbecility, in the section of insane criminals. (The American Journal 
of Insanity, April, 1851, p. 354.) 



522 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

to the execution of his crime, his feet gave forth exhalations of 
sulphur and flame, thus pointing out to him the purgatory of 
which heretics were worthy. On another occasion, he felt 
something springing about over his body. Several days before 
the consummation of the crime, he saw victims raised up into 
the air, and placed on either side of him. Finally, he added, 
that having seen the head of a Moor on a statue in a certain 
town, he had requested a painter to paint it for him, but that 
he found the head itself at the house of the artist, by which he 
concluded that Henry IV. was as black as a devil, that he could 
not be cleansed from his sins, and was damned eternally.* 

Historical documents prove that Jacques Clement must be 
ranked with hallucinated madmen. 

"Being one night in bed, God sent his angel to him in a 
vision, who appeared in a blaze of light ; and who, showing him a 
naked sword said: 'Brother Jacques, I am the messenger of 
the Most High, come to certify that through you the tyrant of 
France must come by his death. Prepare yourself, then, for 
the crown of martyrdom will also be yours.' Having said this, 
the vision disappeared and left him to his meditations. In the 
morning, Brother Jacques reconsidered the apparition, and 
doubtful as to how he should act, consulted a friend, who was 
also a priest (Father Bourgoing, prior of his convent), a scien- 
tific man, and one well versed in Holy Writ, to whom he can- 
didly declared his vision, and inquired if it was unpleasing to 
God to kill a king who had neither faith nor religion, "f 

It is distressing to think how many persons have been sacri- 
ficed by similar madmen. 

The young German who attempted to assassinate Napoleon 
at Schoenbrunn also had visions. He saw the genius of Germany, 
who told him to deliver his country. The outrages committed 
bj hallucinated madmen are sometimes the result of a command 
which is given to them, or of a voice which speaks to them. 

M. Bottex relates, in his Memoirs, that there was, some years 

* Bazin, Histoire de la Fronde, Proces, Examen, Confessions, et Nega- 
tions du mechant et execrable parricide Francois Ravaillac, surla mort de 
Henri le Grand, anonymous pamphlet, Paris, 1611, 12mo. p. 35, etc. 

f Discours Veritable, fait par un Jacobin sur la mort de Henry III. This 
paper, printed at Troyes, in 1589, is found in the Journal de Henri III., by 
Pierre de l'Estoile. La Haye in-12 T., t. iii. p. 455. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 523 

since, in the hospital of Antiquaille, at Lyons, a hypochondriac 
attacked by hallucinations, who strangled his daughter in obe- 
dience to voices which commanded him to stop her breath. 

We read the following in the Journal d'Huf eland : " A 
Prussian peasant imagined that he both saw and heard an angel, 
who commanded him, in the name of God, to immolate his son 
on a funeral pile. He immediately ordered the boy to carry 
wood to a certain spot which he pointed out. The son obeyed ; 
his father laid him on the wood, and instantly killed him. He 
was his only son." 

Hallucination is sometimes the predisposing cause of a culpa- 
ble action, the accomplishment of which is the result of an 
illusion. 

Case CLXXIL Amongst the theological students in the Uni- 
versity of Leipsic, was one named Rau, who became deeply in- 
terested in the study of the Apocalypse of St. John. The 
perusal of these revelations so inflamed his mind that he enter- 
tained the idea of reproducing these celestial visions. He soon 
believed himself inspired, and thought he had communications 
with God. His duties were neglected; he became passionate 
and morose. He considered himself superior to the rest of 
mankind. Full of this idea, he took to preaching, and expressed 
himself in the following terms : "He who does not believe in 
sorcerers, does not believe in the devil ; he who does not believe 
in the devil, does not believe in God ; he who does not believe 
in God, shall be damned." 

On the 4th of August, 1799, his neighbors hearing a noise, 
broke into his apartment, where they found his father in a pool 
of blood, pierced with fifteen wounds, and with a large gash in 
his throat. Rau was striding up and down the room, now ac- 
cusing himself of having committed this horrible crime, and then 
pretending that his father was an old Jew, who had been killed 
by a Turk. 

During his trial, he said he had never been baptized ; that the 
man whom he had killed was not his father, since he did not 
resemble him. His conduct was unseemly and rude, and he 
evinced tBe greatest contempt for all mankind. During a vio- 
lent storm he was heard to exclaim : " Here comes the savage 
prince ! I know him well, for I have often heard him." 

Here is a case, in which the hallucinated person commits a 



524 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

murder under the influence of an illusion, two phenomena which 
are often found in combination.* 

Resolutions and actions into which individuals are drawn by 
hallucinations, are sometimes produced suddenly. Darkness, 
night, and particularly sleep, have frequently appeared to favor 
these instantaneous paroxysms. In some circumstances, the 
crime has been committed without any previous delirium. 

Case CLXXIII. On the 1st of January, 1843, a young man 
requested a night's lodging in an inn, at Bully, near Lyons, 
kept by a man of the name of Blanc. Having supped, and 
drank a glass of wine, offered to him free of charge by his host, 
he was ushered to the room which had been prepared for him. 
There was nothing in the manner of the individual to attract 
particular attention, or in his conduct to betray a sinister pre- 
occupation. 

Two hours afterwards, about ten at night, the landlord heard 
a noise which proceeded from the stranger's room. He took a 
light in order to ascertain the cause. Scarcely had he entered 
the room, than the traveller, without speaking a word, sprang on 
him and struck him with the blade of a pair of tailors' shears. 
The cries of the innkeeper brought assistance, and the murderer 
was seized and disarmed. At length, the gendarmes arrived, 
and secured the desperate fellow. Happily, the weapon which 
he used had only made slight wounds. 

On being interrogated as to the motives of his crime, he re- 
plied : " I found that a plot had been laid in the house for my 
assassination, and I took measures to sell my life dearly." 

The name of the man was Alphonse Terry, a journeyman 
tailor, who was on his way to Bois d'Oingt (Rhone) in search of 
work ; his age was twenty-eight. 

Transferred to the prison of the Palais de Justice in Lyons, 
he was entered on the jailer's books, and impeached for cutting 
and slaying. During his journey and his subsequent detention 
in prison, he was perfectly calm ; nor did he betray, in his con- 
versation with his jailer and companions, the least symptom of 
dementia ; on the contrary, he exhibited great clearness of 
intellect. On the 5th of January, he was brought before a 

*Magazin Psychologique, vol. viii., communicated by Professor Gruner, 
of the University of Jena. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 525 

magistrate. We think it right to give his different replies to 
the interrogatories : — 

D. "Why did you ill-treat the master of the inn at Bully ?" 

R. "Whilst I was at supper, the innkeeper took a large knife 
and passed into an alcove belonging to the tavern. On coming 
out, he said: ' There is one disposed of!' Another man entered 
a second alcove at the foot of the staircase, whom he followed, 
and also killed, saying the same words. He then offered me 
a glass of red wine, which I accepted. There were women 
present whom he induced to drink white wine. I then went to 
bed. From my room, which was over the tavern, I heard a plot 
made to assassinate me. I then resolved to sell my life dearly. 
I placed myself near to the door, with my scissors in my hand, 
and when he entered my room I defended myself." 

D. u In what manner and by what words did you comprehend 
that you were to be assassinated?" 

R. " They knew that I had seen them murder the two other 
travellers, and I heard them consult together; the one said: 'He 
saw us kill them.' The other replied : 'He saw nothing ; let us 
leave him alone.' The first continued: 'I tell you that he did 
see it, and we must assassinate him; we shall be safer.' The 
first then said: 'Go up.' The other replied: 'No; go you 

up .' " 

On the day following, two physicians, Messrs. Chapeau and 
Tavernier, were commissioned by the magistrate to report as to 
the mental condition of the criminal. 

In all the interrogatories to which he was subjected, this man 
evinced good sense and judgment. He again narrated all 
he had seen, heard, and felt in the inn at Bully. His recital 
was that of a man fully convinced and free from passion, and 
who congratulated himself on having escaped a great danger. 

The experienced physicians to whom the examination of 
Alphonso Terry was confided, gave in their report, which was 
forwarded to the authorities. Whatever may have been the 
result and issue of the trial, we cannot but shudder at the 
frightful position of the accused, and of the impossibility of 
legally justifying him, had he by chance had any cause of dis- 
like to the inkeeper, any dispute with him relative to the price 
of his repast, or, finally, had it been possible to believe in any 
intention of his to commit robbery. 



526 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

The curious account which Brillat Savarin has given, in his 
Physiologie du Cfout, incontestably proves that nocturnal hallu- 
cination may be the occasion of a crime. The assassination of 
the woman Schon, which we have elsewhere related, is a fresh 
proof of it. 

It is, then, with much reason that Marc speaks of the state of 
sleeping as demanding especial attention in the medico-legal 
examination of insanity. In fact, in the greater number of 
maniacs, sleep is disturbed and agitated by visions, great panic, 
groanings, and vociferations. Even with those monomaniacs 
who are governed by gay and exciting ideas, sleep is restless 
and difficult to obtain, because they are a prey to hallucinations, 
which in general are more distinct and frequent in the night 
than during the day, and because, in the darkness and silence of 
night, their fantastic imaginations yield more readily to those 
conceptions to which their delirium gives birth. 

The suddenness of hallucinations is sufficiently established 
by the fact which we have just related; the annals of science 
contain many other examples. When they give rise only to 
extravagant actions, they attract but little attention ; they pass 
unnoticed, or are concealed in private asylums. But when a 
crime is the consequence, it behoves us not to decide hastily ; 
every particular, which can throw light on the subject, should 
be carefully collected. This species of hallucinations resembles 
homicidal monomania, which appears suddenly, without being 
announced by any prior derangement of mind. A knowledge 
of antecedents can often point out the track of madness. When 
extravagances, whimsicalities, and eccentricities have already 
intimated a defective intellect, suspicion becomes more conclu- 
sive, if, at some former period, a strange or unaccountable 
action is discovered to have taken place. An inquiry as to 
inherited disease is, under such circumstances, very useful. The 
motives for actions, and the replies of the individual accused, 
should undergo severe scrutiny. When he answers that he 
obeyed a voice, was irritated by insults, or desired to be re- 
venged for persecutions heaped upon him ; when it is ascer- 
tained if his victim were unknown to, or on good terms with 
him, or that no sort of connection can be discovered between 
them, the presumptions are still more important. Nor must 



HALLUCINATIONS IN KELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 527 

written correspondence be neglected, which often throws great 
light on an action apparently incomprehensible. 

A single hallucination, which has appeared suddenly, exhibits 
symptoms evident to the experienced observer. There is some- 
thing in the words, gestures, and actions — brief, abrupt, and 
unusual, which proves that the individual is not in a normal 
condition. There will be a derangement of almost all the func- 
tions. These collective facts evince the difficulty of feigning 
hallucinations. 

If any doubt, however, should exist, solitary confinement 
must be practised, the result of which, most usually, is that 
evident symptoms of insanity exhibiting themselves sooner or 
later, all uncertainty is dispelled. 

Hallucinations not only induce suicide and murder, but they 
may also lead to theft and incendiarism. 

Case CLXXIV. Jonathan Martin, that modern Erostratus, 
who burned York Minster, said to the examining judge: 
"Your accusation of theft is devoid of common sense, and you 
had better give it up ; I never intended to purloin anything ; 
but, having received intimation from an angel that it was the 
will of God I should set fire to the cathedral, it was necessary 
to supply myself with evidence that I alone committed the act, 
in order that I should have the honor, or, if you prefer the ex- 
pression, the odium of the deed." Jonathan Martin, being 
declared a lunatic, was confined in Bedlam, where he still 
remains. 

Case CLXXV. A girl, named Grabowska, under fifteen years 
of age, suffering from nostalgia, set fire in two instances to a 
house, in order that she might quit her masters. She declared 
that, from the moment she entered their service, she was tor- 
mented with a desire of incendiarism. It appeared to her that 
a spirit was always present with her, urging the deed. It was 
discovered that the girl had for a length of time suffered from 
violent headache, and a delay in the physical changes usual 
to females of that age.* 

Case CLXXVI. A man, about thirty years old, was brought 
to my establishment, under a suspicion of feigning insanity. 

* Marc, Memoires sur la Pyromanie, t. ii. p. 356. Des monomanes — 
Klein, vol. ix. Annales Judiciaires. 



528 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

There was a deficit of several thousand francs in the house of 
business in which he was engaged, of which he either would not 
or could not give any account. In three hours after his arrival, 
he threw a whole set of chimney-ornaments into the fire. The 
superintendent asked him why he committed so unreasonable an 
act. For some time he made no reply, but, at length, in a low 
and mysterious voice, he said: "He ordered me to do it." From 
that time, it was impossible to draw from him another word ; 
and he soon fell into complete dementia. 

We have shown how often hallucinations are combined with 
illusions which may, in their turn, be the occasions of instinctive 
decisions of the highest importance. A knowledge of cases, in 
which the existence of mental alienation was undoubted, would 
serve as guides in analogous cases, which, not having been 
before recognized, or occurring suddenly, might perplex both 
physicians and lawyers. 

The doctor mentioned by Esquirol, who nearly died from the 
effects of bleeding, without any modification either of his insanity 
or hallucinations, believed that he one day saw one of the keep- 
ers paying court to his wife, and rushing upon him, wounded 
him severely. 

Case CLXXVII. Madame B., highly educated, but very ro- 
mantic and excitable, was married at twenty years of age. This 
union appeared happy for a very long time. But as a critical 
time of life approached, her mind evinced derangement of a very 
remarkable character. She imagined that her husband had sold 
her, and that she was dishonored in his sight. Her religious 
ideas became exceedingly developed ; she believed herself in 
communication with heavenly intelligences, heard divine voices, 
and received revelations from the Deity. At this time, she 
conceived a hatred of her husband, which constantly increased. 
She incessantly spoke of doing him some violence. Her sister 
frequently remonstrated with her on the subject ; and being one 
day more than usually importunate, Madame H. seized her by 
the throat, and endeavored to strangle and throw her from the 
window. 

After this paroxysm, she passed a month in the establishment 
of Dr. Pressat ; and although, when removed, her conversation 
was rational, she was still under much religious excitement. She 
was continually in the churches, where she seemed to see mar- 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 529 

vellous things. Still, at home, she appeared tolerably calm ; 
but her husband, who felt uneasy, locked himself every night 
in his room. One night he heard a gentle tap at his door ; he 
immediately arose, and inquired who was there, but received no 
reply. Half an hour after, he again heard a knock, and this 
time his question was answered by his wife, who said, in a com- 
plaining voice : " My dear, I am ill, and am come to ask your 
assistance." The husband opened his door, and Madame H. 
instantly struck him five blows on. the head with an iron bar. 
With the energy of despair he pushed her out, fastened the door, 
and fell, covered with blood. 

On the following day, Madame H. was taken back to the es- 
tablishment where she had previously been. In a few days she 
became more calm, and said she could only explain the act by 
an aberration of mind. " I imagined," she said, "that my hus- 
band was metamorphosed into a demon, and I looked on him 
with horror." 

Some months subsequently, this lady was removed to my 
establishment in the Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve. She was 
then very tranquil. Her conversation was rational and ani- 
mated, but her antipathy to her husband continued. 

Her sister, who had so narrow an escape from being her first 
victim, came often to see her ; she loved her much, and expected 
her visits with impatience. When I was interrogating her on 
the insane attempt she had one day made on the life of this sis- 
ter, she said : " How could I help it ? — when I sprang upon her, 
she appeared to me a green and hideous corpse, whose looks were 
diabolical ; the sight filled me with so much horror that I wished 
to get rid of it in any way." These reasons were similar to 
those which induced her to strike her husband. 

This lady, who, during her residence with me passed her days 
and evenings with my family, was attacked several times with 
hallucinations and illusions. Notwithstanding her style of life, 
and the apparent sanity of her conversation, her looks were at 
times so malicious that I forbade any but the regular attendants 
to enter her room. When tormented by illusions, she uttered 
deadly threats, against which we took precautions by locking 
her up in her own chamber. 

Examples of this kind cannot be too carefully studied, for 
they may be the cause of ill-founded censures, and of interpre- 
34 



530 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

tations the most opposed to truth — so deceitful are appearances ! 
Such, in fact, was the case in an event which was thus reported 
in the Bulletin des Tribunaux : — 

" We related in our paper of the 9th of July, 1843, an at- 
tempted assassination, wrapped in mystery, which occurred on 
the Place du Palais-Royal. A young journeyman goldsmith, 
named Gamier, was passing the spot about nine o'clock, a few 
paces only from the quarters of the municipal guard, when he 
heard the report of a gun. Gamier thought that aim had been 
taken at an officer who was then passing by, but he had scarcely 
addressed him, than he himself fell senseless. Although at the 
moment he was only conscious of a severe shock, a ball had, 
nevertheless, entered deeply into his abdomen. 

" The author of this crime, however, escaped all the researches 
of the police. Gamier, whose wound happily was not mortal, 
declared that he had not had any quarrel, nor was he conscious 
of having an enemy. Three weeks elapsed without any disco- 
very being made, when a fortuitous circumstance put the police 
at length on the track of the supposed culprits. Writs were 
issued against them, and the day before yesterday a police officer, 
accompanied by several constables, arrested Raphael C. de G., 
aged twenty-seven, born at Palma, and residing in Paris, Rue 
Saint Thomas-du-Louve, No. 15, and Otto Eischer, a Prussian, 
in his service, Rue du Jour, No. 8. 

" G. made a desperate resistance. Such was his fury, that, 
although he had no time to seize his arms, four strong men were 
required to secure him, which they could only do by binding 
his limbs strongly with ropes. A number of loaded pistols, 
sword sticks, three daggers, balls, powder, etc., were found in 
his apartments. 

"When the frenzy of this man was somewhat calmed, he said 
that he was the sole author of the crime, and that they had 
done wrong to arrest Otto Fischer. He professed to have been 
grossly insulted by Gamier, and desired revenge ; but there is 
reason to believe that G. has some interest in concealing the 
truth, and that the blow which reached the unfortunate Gamier 
was intended for some one else. The examination is going on."* 

On perusing this article, would not the conclusion be natural 

* Bulletin des Tribunaux, 1st August, 1843. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 531 

that M. de G. was a great criminal, who could only expect to be 
placed on the bench at the court of assize ? Let us examine 
how matters really were. He had scarcely passed his examina- 
tion before doubts arose in the minds of the magistrates as to the 
soundness of his mind. Dr. Brun, in conjunction with another 
physician, was commissioned to report on his mental condition. 
The conclusions were such that he was placed at the disposal of 
the administrative authorities, who sent him to Bicetre. 

The feeling produced by a detention in this hospital on a 
man of high rank and fortune was such that on several occa- 
sions he attempted to starve himself. 

After a short stay there, he was transferred to my establish- 
ment. The first impression was highly in his favor. Well- 
made, handsome, with a pleasant smile, eyes black, and, like 
most Spaniards, very expressive, with courteous manners, he 
could not be otherwise than interesting. Having left him some 
days in tranquillity, I at length questioned him as to the events 
which had occurred. 

" Such as you see me, sir," he said, " I am the most miserable 
of men. For many years past, a vast conspiracy has been 
organized against me in my own country ; the whole city of 
Palma has plotted my ruin; relations, friends, citizens, are in 
league to destroy me ; they insult me, lay snares, pursue me, 
point at me, etc. 

"In order to escape from this persecution, I took refuge in 
France, where I claimed the protection of the police ; but I 
soon found that they were suborned and bought by my enemies. 
For several days they had given me no rest. Furious and out 
of patience at such conduct, I fired on one of them, who had 
not ceased insulting and making grimaces at me." 

" Then you know the man ?" I inquired. 

"I had never seen him." "Permit me to observe that your 
reply seems very extraordinary." " There it is ; they want to 
make me pass for a madman ; but I insist on it, I am judge of 
my own honor. Whenever I am insulted, either myself or my 
adversary must die." 

Some time afterwards, he desired to speak to me privately. 
"Sir," said he, " I see plainly that my enemies are powerful; 
I am prepared to make any pecuniary sacrifice in order to leave 
this place. Tell me what sum I must give to government." I 



532 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

remarked that it was not the custom in France to make a man 
pay for his freedom ; and that, in all probability, he would 
shortly be sent home. Three months passed thus ; finally, he 
was confided to a friend who had been sent from Spain to fetch 
him, and whom I cautioned not to lose sight of him for an in- 
stant : since, if he continued under the same impressions, some 
unfortunate catastrophe might take place. 

What a subject for reflection is such a case ? With the 
exception of this fixed idea that he had enemies who insulted, 
made grimaces, and sought to annoy him, although he had never 
seen them, M. de G. resembled other persons. He conversed 
delightfully on his country and on literature, sang well, and was 
a good artist. He carefully avoided all allusion to the circum- 
stances which occasioned his confinement. And yet this man, 
who amused himself all day, would have killed the first man he 
met with, under the false impression of his being an enemy. 

Amongst the numerous cases of this nature given in the 
Gazette des Tribunaux, we must not omit that of a man named 
Boutron, living in the Carrefour Bassy, who was always com- 
plaining to the authorities and the commissioner of his " quar- 
tier," that he was incessantly pursued by enemies, and con- 
stantly heard voices, which threatened and insulted him. For 
six months he continued to write letters on the subject. 

As it too frequently happens, Boutron imbibed a hatred to a 
certain person ; his porter was the unhappy victim whom he 
selected, and in one of his hallucinations he killed him by several 
stabs of a knife. The council chamber decided that he was 
insane. 

Illusions of sleep may occasion strange, reprehensible, and 
dangerous actions, if, like hallucinations, they continue at the 
moment of awaking and even afterwards. We have frequently 
witnessed very extraordinary scenes which have only been the 
continuation of a dream. Individuals who have spoken and 
acted under this influence, might have been taken for madmen ; 
but when the images of the night became w T eaker and finally 
disappeared, they were the first to express astonishment at the 
language they had held, although they assured us that at the 
time their sensations appeared perfectly natural. Men of great 
intrepidity have, under this impression, exhibited fear in situa- 
tions of ordinary danger, which this fact can alone explain. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 533 

We read in the Journal de JBelfort, of the 26th of August, 
1843, as follows :— 

" A nocturnal adventure no less singular than amusing, re- 
cently took place in one of the faubourgs of our city. 

Case CLXXYIII. " The quartermaster to a regiment of Af- 
rican chasseurs stopped at an inn where the walls of the eating- 
room were decorated with hangings representing the most glo- 
rious feats of arms accomplished by our young army on the 
African territory. The officer gazed admiringly on the repre- 
sentation of battles in which he had fought ; and from the flash- 
ing of his eye, his haughty bearing, and general agitation, it 
was. easy to perceive how powerfully old recollections were 
revived ; and he left the apartment, casting furious glances on 
the soldiers of the modern Jugurtha. 

" In the middle of the night, the innkeeper hears a dreadful 
uproar in the eating-room. He hastens down — to see what ? 
the quartermaster, in the costume of the hero of La Mancha — 
that is to say, in his shirt — who, under an attack of hallucina- 
tion, had arisen from his bed, and, with a billet of wood in his 
hand, was striking right and left at the Arabs on the hangings. 
He cleaves, crushes, and mutilates a great number of Bedouins, 
of both sexes. In his rage for extermination, he spares neither 
tables, chairs, nor mirrors. There is no saying how far this 
horrible carnage would have proceeded, had not an agent of the 
police arrived, who explained to the soldier that the real Arabs 
were in Africa, while these were in France, and — on paper ; and 
that it was unnecessary to carry his enthusiasm so far as to fight 
them in effigy. 

" The quartermaster returned to bed, cursing the copper- 
colored deceivers, and, conqueror as he was, had nevertheless to 
defray the expenses of the war."* 

Hallucinations and illusions are one of the most characteristic 
symptoms of the action of intoxicating drinks ; and whenever 
this is the case, and they become the motives of an action accom- 
plished during drunkenness, they should be taken into consider- 
ation as an excuse or extenuation. These sensuous errors at 
times occasion deplorable catastrophes. If the observation of 
Freidreich be true,f drunken hallucinations are chiefly noticed 

* Univers et Union Catholique, 1st November, 1843. 
f Freidreich, Gericht. Psychologic, p. 790. 



534 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

in weak subjects, of an irritable and atrabilious temperament, 
and would be less common in the robust ; but they would grad- 
ually increase with all drunkards. 

Case CLXXIX. The individual whose case we now state, 
was very gentle in disposition, and an excellent workman when 
he had not been drinking ; when sober, his energy in labor paid 
off the debts he had contracted during his drunken fits ; but 
when the fit was on him, he remained sometimes for fifteen days 
or three weeks in a state of stupefaction and prostration. 

" On the night of my crime," said he, "I felt so great an- 
guish that I trembled from head to foot. It seemed to me as if 
a voice within me said: l You must now beat your child to death.' 
As so atrocious an idea had never entered my mind, I sprang 
out of bed, raised my clasped hands to heaven, and said to my- 
self, as I walked up and down the room : * Great God ! Lord 
Jesus! I must kill my child !' No voice either within or without 
replied, and I returned to bed. I then caressed the sleeping 
child, and said, in a low tone : 'Sleep, my beloved child, sleep !' 
I had scarcely lain three or four minutes, when the anguish and 
trembling returned, and something unknown repeated, but more 
imperatively than before : ' Knock your child on the head in- 
stantly !' I felt resistance to be impossible. I rose in my shirt, 
and sought for a hatchet under the bed where my two little girls 
slept. Having found it, and grasped the handle, I returned to 
the bed where my son slept. It was five in the morning, and 
broad daylight, and I melted into tears at the sight of my be- 
loved son, whom an authoritative .voice commanded me to kill. 
I could not recall my senses. I raised the hatchet, and with 
the thick end struck him three or four blows on the head. I do 
not know on what part, for my senses were gone. I only know 
that the blows followed in quick succession, that he struggled, 
did not speak, but groaned heavily, probably because the first 
blow had mortally wounded him. 

" The sight of his blood brought me somewhat to myself; I 
took the hatchet back to its place, and woke my eldest daughter, 
saying : i Charlotte, get up ; call your mother ; I have killed my 
Charles with the hatchet.' She replied : ' What do you say, my 
father ?' ' Yes, yes, call your mother ; I have indeed killed my 
little Charles with the hatchet.' My daughter began to lament, 
and ran to fetch her mother, whilst my other daughter, who had 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 535 

also awakened, began to weep. For myself, I had attempted to 
put on my pantaloons, but I sobbed and trembled so violently, 
that I could not fasten them ; and when my wife came, I was 
still attempting to dress myself. My wife rushed to the bed, and 
took the child in her arms, walking backwards and forwards with 
him ; but he soon ceased to show any signs of life. I cannot 
conceive how I could commit so atrocious a crime ; I had such 
anguish, such agitation, such a disturbance in my head, and felt 
something so irresistible within me, that I was forced to do it. 
I was fasting — I was not ill ; and I cannot explain how I was 
struck with so great a misfortune. I implore mercy, that I may 
not die on the scaffold, although I acknowledge that I deserve it." 

The correctness of this narration was fully confirmed on in- 
quiry. In an examination which took place some time after- 
wards, he stated as follows: — 

" On two former occasions, I had felt this horrible desire to 
kill my son. The first was six weeks before Easter, in this year. 
I was employed during the winter in my room making a net; my 
son, as usual, was playing around me ; he got on my back, and 
took me around the neck. My wife, thinking that he disturbed 
me, called to him ; but I loved him so much that I put up with 
his fun, and took him on my knees to play with him. Even at 
this moment, I heard an inward voice, saying to me : ' Do what 
you will, this boy must perish; you must knock him on the 
head.' I was seized with such anguish that my heart fainted 
within me ; and in order to get rid of so horrible a thought, I 
hastily placed the child on the ground, left the room, and went 
to the mill, where I remained until night, when my evil thoughts 
were dispelled. 

" The second attack occurred one morning, a few days before 
Easter. My son was lying by my side ; my wife was busy in 
the house. The little boy asked me for some bread ; I gave him 
some cake, which pleased him exceedingly, and which he ate 
with avidity. At this moment, when I was looking on the child 
with the warmest affection, I thought I heard a voice within 
whisper to me : 4 You must kill your son !' I shuddered ; I felt 
a kind of oppression, which made my breast heave, and, full of 
terror, I sprang from my bed and ran out of the house. I 
recited my prayers, busied myself in the stable, and in various 
other ways, and endeavored to drive away the terrible idea 



536 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

that possessed me. Finally, I succeeded in mastering myself, 
recovered in some degree my tranquillity, and played again 
with my child. 

"But my sadness and anguish continued until near midnight. 
I was not tipsy on either occasion, nor had I been for several 
weeks previously, neither had I drank on the third paroxysm, 
which cost the life of my child."* 

Since the Thirty Years' War, a belief has existed in Germany 
amongst the inhabitants of a certain portion of country on the 
borders of the Elbe, that, from time to time, spirits are seen at 
midnight. Mounted on horseback, dressed in blue uniforms, 
turned up with red, they spread themselves between two villages. 
Not only do they inspire with the greatest terror those who have 
stayed over-late in the fields, but they are said sometimes to 
even wound them. The people maintain that they are the ghosts 
of Swedish knights, who, at the time of the war, remained in 
the country, and the tradition is so accredited that no reasoning 
can destroy the belief. 

Case CLXXX. Two aged peasants, who had been intimate 
friends from infancy, and who had always lived on the most 
friendly terms, fell victims to this superstition. They were en- 
gaged in their usual occupations in the fields, when night unex- 
pectedly overtook them. Being fatigued by labor, they seated 
themselves, on their way homeward, under a tree which grew 
by the roadside. Under these circumstances, they began to 
talk about the Swedish knights, and their imaginations, excited 
by drink, led to the impression that they were surrounded by 
them, and could only escape by combat. Each had a stick, as is 
usual with peasants; they continued dealing blows on each 
other, believing they were striking the Swedish knights, until 
one of them suddenly disappeared. The other, whose stick was 
broken, picked up by chance his friend's hat, imagining that he 
had gained a complete victory over the spectres, and that this 
was the head-piece belonging to one of them. Furnished with 
this trophy, and armed with his broken weapon, he returned 
to the village, and went to the house of his friend, whose 
wife and daughters were anxiously expecting their husband 

* Marc, op. cit. p. 618. Heneeke, Annales, vol. viii. Supplement, 
p. 186. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 537 

and father. As soon as he had entered, he exclaimed, with 
great satisfaction: "The devils tried to carry me off, but 
I have given, at least one of them, such a beating with my stick 
that he will never return." But the hat which he carried soon 
caused a suspicion of the misfortune which had occurred. The 
sons of the victim repaired to the spot where the old men had 
sat beneath the tree to drink, and there they found their aged 
father lying dead with a deep wound at the back of his head, 
which rested on a pointed stake. With this exception, his body 
exhibited no external injury. 

On the following day the unhappy author of this homicide 
having recovered his reason, wept bitterly, and expressed the 
liveliest regret. During the summary interrogatory, which he 
underwent, he could say nothing, but that, having continued 
to drink with his friend, they appeared to be surrounded by 
spectres on horseback in blue regimentals turned up with red ; 
and persuaded, on seeing this, that some harm would happen to 
them, they resolved to defend themselves with their sticks ; in 
consequence, they both assailed the spirits, recollecting to have 
heard that, if courageously attacked, they would be put to flight ; 
he added that, in the midst of the combat, he missed his friend, 
and the spectres also suddenly disappeared ; finding a hat on 
the ground, he carried it off; and, believing that his friend had 
gone home, he thought it his first duty to call and inquire how 
he was. 

The faculty in law of the University of Holmstadt being con- 
sulted on the case, gave the following verdict : " Drunkenness 
is a vice to be shunned by all. If any one becomes voluntarily 
intoxicated, without having been constrained thereto, and in 
that state commits a crime, it shall be imputed to him, since he 
owes to himself the loss of his reason. The law has adopted as 
a rule, that when a crime has been committed in a state of com- 
plete drunkenness, the excess of the state should exempt the 
culprit from the usual punishment, excepting in a case where, 
being restored to reason, he evinces no regret for what he has 
done; such conduct proving that he approves of the act com- 
mitted, and would in all probability have done the same even if 
he had not been overtaken with drink. It must also be admitted, 
that complete drunkenness cannot exempt from ordinary punish- 
ment in a case where legislation has decided that no regard 



538 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

should be paid to it in fixing the scale of punishment. On the 
other hand, a crime committed in drunkenness cannot be charged 
on the individual when it has been produced by means foreign 
to the will of the culprit ; for example, if he has been made to 
drink what he believed would not intoxicate him, but into which 
some drug has been introduced which has that effect. It is 
therefore on these principles that the accused must be judged 
and sentenced." 

He was condemned to the galleys for ten years, for having 
induced the commission of the crime by breaking the laws of 
the country, which expressly forbid the people, under severe 
penalties, to be drunk, and which ordain that homicide commit- 
ted in drunkenness, even involuntarily, shall be severely pun- 
ished, and shall even be regarded as less excusable than that 
crime which results from imprudence.* 

Had the doctrine of hallucinations and illusions been better 
understood at the period and in the country where this event 
took place, and had the power of those phenomena accompany- 
ing drunkenness been better appreciated, the sentence would 
probably have been less severe. f 

The superficial observer has much difficulty in finding the 
key to a great number of actions which appear incomprehensible. 
The circle is still more contracted to philosophers and moralists ; 
but to the eyes of the physician, the thick veil, behind which so 
many fancy themselves concealed, becomes transparent, and 
their faults, passions, vices, and moral and physical disorders, 
exhibit a natural explanation of their conduct. Thus, for exam- 
ple, to confine ourselves to our subject, hallucinations and illu- 
sions, better understood in our day, have given a reason for a 
number of inexplicable actions, attributed to depravity, bad pro- 
pensities, and crimes. 

Amongst cases of this nature, we have particularly directed 
attention to melancholy monomania combined with hallucina- 
tions. We have proved, by numerous and conclusive facts, the 

* Eisenhart, Relation de Proces remarquables, t. i. p. 25. Muller, Mede- 
cine legale, t. ii. p. 281. 

f Convinced, as we are, that individuals really insane are condemned to 
painful and infamous punishments, we suggest that, in imitation of Eng- 
land, there should be a special division for criminal madmen and vagrant 
madmen. Annal. d'Hygiene et de Medecine Legale, t. xxxiv. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN EELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 539 

evidence of which has convinced magistrates, that many indi- 
viduals who have passed as quarrelsome, hot-headed, and even 
as murderers, belong to this catalogue.* 

The question of isolation is so intimately connected with our 
work that we must say a few words on the subject, although we 
have already touched on it in speaking of treatment. It is 
needless to repeat what we have before advanced ; we will only 
add, that the hallucinated who are tempted to suicide, theft, in- 
cendiarism, murder, etc., should be sequestered. No proofs are 
required to point out the necessity of this measure. The same 
precaution should be taken against hallucinated monomaniacs 
who imagine themselves surrounded by enemies, as soon as they 
utter threats, because experience has demonstrated how instan- 
taneously they are driven to acts of violence ; but isolation 
should not be resorted to unless the hallucinations are of a 
serious character. 

An interdiction can be claimed in cases of hallucination, 
when the delirium is such as to threaten ruin to the individual 
and his family ; but this privation of civil rights cannot be ex- 
ercised simply on account of a peculiar mode of living, singular 
conduct, strange words, or a belief in imaginary circumstances, 
which do not in any manner compromise the fortune of the in- 
dividual, or expose him to become the dupe of intriguers. f 

Amongst cases of this nature, we will mention a demand made 
by M. and Mad. D. for an act of lunacy against Madlle. D. : — 

Case CLXXXI. A young girl, sixteen years of age, arrived 
in Paris early in the year of 1786, with a letter of introduc- 
tion from her family to a friend. By one of those providential 
chances, which can only be looked on as the guidance of 
God, the young girl, having reached her destination, rang the 
bell of the neighboring house, the door of which was soon opened 
by a venerable lady, who inquired what she desired. The 

* "We have endeavored to diffuse these ideas in an article inserted in Le 
Droit, 29th of January, 1850, entitled: "Of the influence of hallucinations 
on certain actions apparently criminal." 

f A. Brierre de Boismont, De l'lnterdiction des Alienes et de l'Etat 
de la Jurisprudence en inatiere de testaments dans l'imputation de 
demence ; with notes hy M. Isambert, counsellor in the Court of Cassa- 
tion, Paris, 1852 (Annal d'Hygiene et de Medecine Legale, January* 
1852). Devergie, Medecine Legale, 3d edition, 1852, t. i. p. 647. 



540 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

simplicity and ingenuousness of the young girl impressed the 
old lady so agreeably that she was immediately received into 
the house as a servant. Her zeal, good conduct, and intelligence 
wrought so much in her favor that, when M. F., a distinguished 
artist and worker in bronze, and son to the old lady, died in 
1838, he left to Madlle. D., as the most active, efficient, and 
faithful artisan in his business, a property of from seven to 
eight hundred thousand francs. 

Then happened that which is but too common in cases of this 
kind ; the relatives of the legatee believed that her mental con- 
dition was such as to cause anxiety respecting her, no less in the 
government of her conduct than of her property. They chose 
to believe that some strange habits, perfectly in harmony with 
her modes of living and thinking, and some enigmatical and 
slightly incoherent conversations were sufficient to constitute a 
state of dementia, for which an act of lunacy, legally pronounced, 
was the only remedy. 

A physician, of unimpeachable probity and acknowledged 
talent, was appointed by the relatives of Madlle. D. to examine 
her. He had recourse to such stratagems as we all use, in order 
to ingratiate ourselves with a person who is represented as in a 
state of alienation, and who is mistrustful. We are persuaded 
that the barrister, who spoke so bitterly against our brother, 
would not have done so, had he been better acquainted with the 
character of Dr. T., and the great difficulties which attend the 
interrogation of the alienated. To refute the arguments, with- 
out distributing blame so plentifully, would have been but just 
and right. 

The examination by Dr. T. went to prove that Madlle. D. had 
not the full use of her intellectual faculties, and that she was 
besides subject to hallucinations. 

An action was commenced before the tribunal of the Seine. 
Madlle. D., being examined, replied with judgment and intel- 
ligence. Once only, in regard to a picture, by Duval Lecamus, 
she said that she perceived the persons represented in it to be 
no other than her parents ; but she speedily corrected this illu- 
sion, by saying that she had heard a resemblance to them 
spoken of. 

At the close of the examination, the tribunal gave a verdict 
rejecting the demand of Monsieur and Madame D. for an act 
of lunacy. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 541 

The case being appealed, Madlle. D. was again examined ; 
her replies were very sensible, with the exception of the follow- 
ing: "What is there to prevent you from marrying?" — "A 
supernatural power ; I cannot tell you more." Messrs. Andral, 
Bleiny, and Ferrus, who had been instructed by the magistrates 
to examine into the mental condition of this lady, gave their 
opinion in these terms : — 

" Madlle. D., aged fifty-six, an old domestic of M. F., dealer 
in curiosities, is gifted with a strong, even a robust constitution, 
but is more irritable than is usual in persons of her calling. 
Her mind, of ordinary capacity, appears naturally upright, but 
inclined to exaltation. 

" In character she is honorable and just, but somewhat singular. 
Her conduct appears to have been irreproachable ; we, neverthe- 
less, think that it has not been so without some violent struggles. 

" We have discovered the existence of some hallucinations in 
Madlle. D. dating far back, perhaps from extreme youth. Hal- 
lucinations may be considered one of the most striking and 
characteristic phenomena of mental alienation ; but they do not 
in themselves constitute incontestable mental alienation, nor do 
they always induce delirium. 

"Madlle. D. reasons with perfect correctness as regards her 
social relations ; she maintains a kind of worship and veneration 
for her old master, which is betrayed in all her words and 
actions. 

" We are of opinion that the hallucinations of Madlle. D. 
may, by their nature and long standing, be looked upon as con- 
stitutional, and hence beyond the resources of art. 

" We think that any treatment, founded on coercion, might 
induce the lady to dissimulate her condition, and perhaps be the 
means of determining symptoms of a much more serious charac- 
ter than those which now exist, and which are brought against 
her. 

" (Signed,) Andral, 

Bleiny, 
Ferrus. 

"Paris, lZth April, 1843." 

After a prolonged discussion in the chamber of council, the 
court confirmed the sentence, which rejected the claim for an 
act of lunacy against Madlle. D. 



542 ON HALLUCINATIONS. 

In the case just reported, it is impossible to do otherwise than 
recognize a well-attested example of hallucinations and illusions. 
The detailed examination by Dr. T., and the opinion of experi- 
enced physicians, leaves no doubt on the subject ; but, howsoever 
certain this fact may be, it is no less true that they in nowise 
influenced her conduct, that her actions were not reprehensible, 
and that her replies to the interrogatories, addressed to her, 
gave no evidence of derangement ; we, therefore, heartily con- 
cur in the decision of the court.* 

Recapitulation. — Hallucinations, single or combined with 
illusions, may be the cause of a number of reprehensible, dan- 
gerous, and criminal resolutions. 

Suicide is frequently the result of hallucinations, which exist 
in the form of apparitions, menaces, and chimerical fears. 

Blows, wounds, even assassination are often occasioned by 
the sight of imaginary enemies, by insults, grimaces, and inju- 
ries, which only exist in the imagination of the hallucinated. 

Challenges to a duel have often been caused by these errors 
of the mind. 

Hallucinated monomaniacs, who believe themselves the objects 
of plots and persecution, are very dangerous. Many murders 
may be referred exclusively to them. It is not unusual to see 
persons thus hallucinated, make several successive attempts. 

In some cases suicide and murder are commanded by invisible 
voices. 

Dangerous actions, incited by hallucinations, are often the 
result of illusions. 

Maniacal delirium, acute delirium, and that which accompa- 
nies febrile affections, may occasion both suicide and homicide. 

Resolutions and actions, into which individuals are drawn by 
hallucinations, sometimes occur quite suddenly. Night, dark- 
ness, and solitude appear to favor the disposition. 

The condition of sleep, the transition from sleeping to waking, 
and from waking to sleeping, should be taken into consideration 
in the perpetration of the acts. 

In the greater number of cases, an attentive examination 
will leave no doubt of the reality of an hallucination, which 

* For this case, see our Memoir on Plnterdiction des Alienes. 



HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 54o 

has suddenly appeared ; in doubtful cases, a prolonged confine- 
ment must be adopted. 

Hallucinations may be the exciting causes of theft, incendia- 
rism, and other reprehensible actions. 

Illusions produce the same resolutions and the same actions 
as hallucinations. 

The hallucinations and illusions of delirium tremens merit 
much attention ; they are almost always the motives of actions 
committed during drunkenness. 

Hallucinations and illusions are the key to a great many in- 
comprehensible actions. 

Confinement is often necessary in hallucinations, but occa- 
sionally a contrary course is indicated. 

Interdiction should be pronounced against individuals whose 
hallucinations bring ruin on themselves or their families : but it 
should not be granted when the individual is inoffensive, and the 
hallucinations are, as it were, constitutional. 

Hallucinations present no obstacles to the power of testating 
when they are of very long continuance, have not exercised any 
influence on the conduct, have not perverted sentiments of affec- 
tion, nor prevented the person from always fulfilling with pro- 
priety his social duties. 



INDEX. 



A. 



Abercrombie, case of confusion of 
the senses by the action of hallu- 
cination. — Cases of hallucinations 
in dreams, 189, 190, 191, 193.— 
Case of day somnambulism, 247. — 
Case of hallucination in fever, 264. 
— Case of hallucination in typhoid 
fever, 268. — Prodromes of diseases, 
278. — Case of hallucinations from 
the use of opium, 329 

Abstinence, its influence on halluci- 
nations, 329 

Abyssinians, case of lycanthropy, 298 

Adrian, villa of, tunnel to convey 
the oracles, 111 

Age, its influence on hallucinations, 
319 

Ajax, his illusion of sight, 107 

Aliment, insufficiency of, its influ- 
ence on hallucinations, 327 

Ambrose, St., his case of prevision, 
235 

Americans, their hallucinations in 
the delirium of intoxication, 164 

Analogies of reason and insanity, 40 

Anatomy, pathological, 449 

Andral, his hallucination during 
sickness, 58 

Anesthesia, its action on hallucina- 
" tions, 299 

Antiochus, collective illusions, 108 

Antiquity, its belief in apparitions, 
66 

Aparte, 448 

Apoplexy, hallucinations on the ap- 
proach of, 243 

Apparitions, 300. — Case of Miss 
Lee, 301, 302 

Arachnites, hallucinations in, 262 

Aretee, remarks on the development 
of the senses in disease and on the 
approach of death, 243, 262, 279 

35 



Arnim, Mad. de, her hallucination, 
94 

Arnold, his definition of hallucina- 
tion, 31 

Ascetism, its influence on hallucina- 
tions, 125 

Asphyxia, influence of on halluci- 
nations, 57 

Association of ideas, their influence 
on hallucinations, 363-374 

Athanasius, St., his opinion on the 
communion of souls after death, 
371 

Athenodorus, his hallucination, 66 

Atmosphere, influence of in hallu- 
cinations, 276, 326 

Attention, its action on hallucina- 
tions, 368 

Aubanel, his division of hallucina- 
tions, 34 

Augustin, St., his case of a dream, 
204. — His opinion of apparitions, 
372 



B. 



Bachzko, his hallucinations, 297 
Bacon, acknowledges prevision, 237 
Baillarger, his definition of halluci- 
nations, 34. — Hallucinations in 
stupidity, 135 ; his theory of at- 
tention, 368 ; his physiology of hal- 
lucinations, 409 
Bar Guest, 325 
Baudry, his case of hallucination. 

369 
Beauregard, Father, his celebrated 

case of prevision, 237 
Belief, desire of, introduction, 21 
Beliefs, their influence on illusions, 

110 
Ben Jonson, his hallucinations after 
intellectual labor, 59 



546 



INDEX. 



Benvenuto Cellini, his hallucina- 
tions, 67 

Berbiguier, his hallucinations, 87, 94 

Bergier, The Abbe, his doctrine of 
hallucinations, 404 

Bernadotte, his hallucination ; his 
star, 63 

Bernardin de Saint Pierre, his opin- 
ion on dreams, 195 

Bessus, his illusion, 107 

Bilious disease of warm countries, 
hallucinations in, 269, 270 

Billod, hallucinations before epilep- 
sy, 173 

Blake, the Seer, his hallucinations, 
85 

Bland, his definition of hallucina- 
tions, 33 

Bleeding may aggravate hallucina- 
tions, 469 

Blind, their hallucinations, 84,85. — 
Case of a blind somnambulist, 258 

Bodin, his hallucinations, 72 

Bonaventura (Saint), his opinion on 
hallucinations, 403 

Bossuet, his explanation of dreams, 
269 

Bostock, his hallucination recog- 
nized, 41 

Bottex, his hallucination recognized, 
47 

Bordeu speaks but little of halluci- 
nation in catalepsy, 244 

Bovet, his hallucination in darkness, 
seen by two witnesses, 69 

Brachet, frightful dreams before epi- 
leptic convulsions, 173 

Brewster, hallucination of Newton, 
41 

Brillat Lavarin, his observation on 
somnambulism, 249 

Brocken (the giant of the), 105 

Brutus, his hallucination, 372 

Burdach, his opinion on hallucina- 
tions, 407 

Burns (Robert), influence of tales 
told to children in the production 
of hallucinations, 287 

Buzzing in ears, analogous sounds 
are illusions, 81 

Byron, his hallucination, 66 



C. 



Cabanis, his remarks on the excita- 
bility of the nervous system in 



hysteric subjects. — Do. on the de- 
velopment of the intellectual facul- 
ties in certain affections, 244, 275 
Calenture, its influence on halluci- 
nations, 133 
Calmeil, his definition of hallucina- 
tions, 33 ; his division, 63 
Garden, illusions of sight, 112 ; his 

hallucination, 369 
Castlereagh (star of), 62 
Castles in the air, favorable to hallu- 
cinations, 268 
Catalepsy, hallucination in, 245 
Cattho, his case of prevision of the 

death of Charles the Bold, 237 
Causes of hallucinations, 282 ; moral 
causes, 285 ; statistics, 291 ; phy- 
sical causes, 317 
Cazotte, his prediction, 238 
Cerebral (hallucinations in diseases), 

260 
Chardel,his case of Madame Plantin, 
257. — Cases of somnambulism, 
255, 256 
Charles VI., collective illusions, 109 
Charles IX., his hallucinations, 312 
Chesterfield, his hallucinations, 71 
Children, epidemic hallucinations in, 

323 
Chlorosis (hallucination in), 274 
Chorea (hallucination in), 179 
Chronic (hallucinations in diseases), 

278 
Civilization, its influence on halluci- 
nations, 309 
Clairvoyance, 251, 256 
Classification of hallucinations, 26 
Climates, their influence on halluci- 
nations, 324 
Colic, metallic (hallucination in the), 

179 
Collective hallucinations, 69, 71. — 

Illusions, 108, 109, 297 
Combe, influence of the Keff, 44 
Concentration, its action on halluci- 
nations, 360 
Conditions favorable to the produc- 
tion of hallucinations, 441 
Condorcet, his hallucinations in 

dreams, 203 
Congestion (hallucinations in), 262 
Conolly, hallucination before epilep- 
sy, 173 
Conolly, hallucination in fever, 266 
Conrad Gesner, his dream, 204 
Contention of mind, its influence on 
hallucinations, 59. — Case in sup- 



INDEX. 



547 



port of, 59; hallucinations and il- 
lusions consequent on, 59 

Continence, its action on hallucina- 
tions, 328 

Contradictions occur in insane sub- 
jects, 124 

Convalescence, its influence on hal- 
lucinations, 57 

Conviction of hallucinated in their 
false sensations, 407 

Cousin (Victor), his opinion on hal- 
lucinations, see Preface, vi 

Crichton, his definition of hallucina- 
tions, 32 

Cromwell, his hallucination, or his 
star, 67 

Crusades, illusions, collective, 110 
— Their action on hallucinations, 
377 



D. 



Dangers of hallucinations, 503, etseq. 

Darkness, its influence on hallucina- 
tions, 69, 81, 287. — Its action on 
delirious patients, 288 

Darwin, his definition of hallucina- 
tions, 33 

Datura stramonium, its action on 
hallucinations, 343, 473 

Deaf, their hallucinations, 80 

Death, development of sensibility on 
the approach of, 243 

Dechambre, his opinion on halluci- 
nations as compatible with reason, 
74 ; his objections to the interpo- 
sition of the senses in hallucina- 
tions, 409 

Definition, 23 ; that of several au- 
thors, 23 ; our own, 28 

Delasiauve, his opinion on the hallu- 
cinations of stupidity, 139 ; do. on 
the hallucinations of the delirium 
of intoxication, 168 

Delirium acute, hallucinations in, 260 

Delirium tremens, hallucinations in, 
163 

Dementia, hallucinations in, 152 

Demonomania, its influence on hal- 
lucinations, 126. — Sexual inter- 
course, 128 

Demons, their influence on halluci- 
nations, 293. — A belief in demons 
arises from the desire to pass the 
limits of the visible world, 296 

Dendy, his definition of hallucina- 
tions, 35 



Desfontaines, his apparition to Be- 
zuel, 303 

Deuteroscopie, sight of one's own 
image, 302 

Devil, his influence on hallucinations. 
126, 296 

Diagnosis of hallucinations, 463 

Divided hallucination, 73. — Case of 
Bodin, 72 

Division of hallucinations, 35 

Dreams, hallucinations in, 188, 190, 
204, 205. — Psychical or intuitive 
dreams, 202. — Hallucinations in 
dreams, forerunners of disease, 
204.— Case, 205.— Case of revela- 
tion in a dream, 204, 359, 438 

Drunkards, hallucinations of, 164 

Dubuisson, his adventure with Ge- 
neral Mallet, 84 

Dyce, of Aberdeen, his case of som- 
nambulism, 250 



E. 



Eclampsia (hallucination in), 173 

Ecstasy, hallucinations in, 212. — 
Case of Jean Engelbrecht, 214 ; 
physiological ecstasy, morbid ec- 
stasy, 215 ; cataleptic ecstasy, 217 ; 
hysteric, 218. — Case, the ecstatic 
of Voray, 219 ; the ecstatic of the 
Vosges, 223. — Case, mystic ecsta- 
sy, 224. — Case of the Scarred 
Maiden of Tyrol, 225 ; ecstasy of 
the insane, 229 ; epidemic ecstasy, 
230, 231, 286 ; ecstasy common 
among primitive nations, 232 : 
ecstatic visions of cold countries. 
243 < 

Education, its influence on halluci- 
nations, 286, 293, 294 

Emotions, sensual and sentimental; 
their influence on hallucinations. 
293 

Encephalitus (hallucination in), 263 

English opium-eater, his hallucina- 
tion, 329 

Epidemic illusions, 35 ; of night- 
mare, 186 

Epidemic (hallucinations nocturnal), 
134; hallucinations in ecstatics, 
216 

Esquirol, his definition of hallucina- 
tion, 32 ; his division, 36 ; his sta- 
tistics of hallucinations, 119 



548 



INDEX. 



Etoc Demazy, his remarks on the 
hallucination of stupidity, 135 

Events political, their influence on 
hallucinated persons, 291 

External hallucinations, 80 



Fear, its influence on illusions, 106 ; 
on hallucinations, 310 

Ferdinand Denis, note on illumi- 
nism, 213 ; on ecstasy, 232 

Ferriar, his definition of hallucina- 
tion, 32. — Case of hallucination in 
dreams, 193 ; second sight, 243. — 
Case of hallucination produced by 
the moon, 290 

Fever, hallucinations in, 264; hallu- 
cinations in the three degrees of 

4 Conolly, 265 

Ficinus, his apparition to Mercatus, 
304 

Florentines, their illusion, 109 

Flying, sensation of, 94, 126, 182 

Foville, his definition of hallucina- 
tion, 33 ; his opinion on patholo- 
gical anatomy, 453, 454 

Fox (George), his hallucinations, 
393 



G. 



Galen, his dream, 203 

Gardiner, his dream, 305 

General hallucination, 97 

G6ramb (de), his hallucination, 65 

Goethe, his hallucination, 67 ; his 
hallucination of flying, 94 

Gout, hallucinations in, 273 

Grief, its influence on insanity, 122 

, on suicide, 124 

Guillon (1' Abbe), his case of halluci- 
nation of a duellist, 313 



H. 



Hallucinations compatible with rea- 
son, 40 ; produced by the sun, ex- 
periment by Newton, 41. — Physio- 
logical, corrected by the under- 
standing, non-corrected, soundness 
of reason in both cases, 60 ; at 
will, 60 ; instantaneous, 47 ; col- 
lective, 69, 108, 377 ; divided, 73 ; 



external and internal 80 ; sympto- 
matic, 147 ; hypnagogical, 204 : 
their difference according to the 
case, 358; their mode of reproduc- 
tion without the concurrence of the 
senses, 365. — They are reminis- 
cences, the reproduction of habit- 
ual ideas, 373 ; general, 97 ; indi- 
vidual, 380 ; psycho-sensorial, psy- 
chical, 409 

Hallucinations in themselves insane, 
simple, 76. — Fully carried out in 
the alienated, 87. — Differences 
which separate them from those 
compatible with reason, 92. — Of 
hearing, 77.— Of sight, 81 — Of 
touch, 92.— Of smell, 94— In re- 
lation to illusions, 103.— In mono- 
mania, 119. — In stupidity, 135. — 
In mania, 141. — In dementia, 152. 
--In general paralysis, 159. — In 
imbecility, 162. — In delirium tre- 
mens, 163. — In nervous diseases 
other than insanity, 170. — In hys- 
teria, 174, 175, 218.— In hypo- 
chondria, 176. — In febrile, inflam- 
matory, acute, chronic, and other 
diseases, 260. — In hyperemia, 262. 
— In the hemorrhoides, 272. — In 
the prodromes, 277. — In hectic 
diseases, 278. — Pure are as rare as 
pure monomania, 395 

Hallucinations of historical charac- 
ters, 20. — Our opinion on the sub- 
ject, 351, 396 

Hallucinations, conditions favorable 
to their production, 441 

Hallucinations in a medico-legal 
point of view, 100, 499. — Their 
influence on actions, 100, 101, 
502. ' — Danger accompanying hal- 
lucination, 343 

Harrington, his hallucination, 83 

Haschisch, its influence on halluci- 
nations, 333 

Hearing, hallucinations of, 77. — Case 
of the prefect, of Esquirol, 77. — 
Case, 80 

Heart, hallucinations in diseases of 
the, 274 

Hereditary hallucinations, 318 

Herbert, his hallucination, 306 

Hibbert, his definition of hallucina- 
tion, 32. — His opinion on the ap- 
paritions of Holy Writ, 401 

Hildebrand, case of hallucinations 
in typhus, 268 



INDEX. 



549 



Hippocrates, hallucinations in ty- 
phus, 267 
History, of the hallucinations of, 351 



Ideal, hallucination is the material 
reproduction of the, 45 

Ideas, their influence on hallucina- 
tions, 83. — On illusions, 109. — On 
death, 283. — Their sensual and 
spiritual nature, 360. — Spiritual 
ideas, how they may supply hallu- 
cinations, 364 

Ideas, false ; their influence on hal- 
lucinations, 293, 307, 375 

Ideas, insane ; their action on hallu- 
cinations, 359 

Ideler, his judgment on hallucina- 
tions, 392 _ 

Ignorance ; its influence on halluci- 
nations, 106 

Illuminism. — Note on, 214 

Illusions, 103. — Induce the belief 
that the senses are not reliable, 
103.— Their character, 104.— 
Transformation of objects into 
spectres and figures, 106. — Case of 
a mast taken for a corpse, 106. — 
May be exhibited in an epidemic 
form, 107. — Illusions, collective, 
107. — Case of warriors in the air, 
107, 108, 109.— Explanation of col- 
lective illusions, 110. — Illusions of 
hearing, 111 

Illusions recognized as false, 112. — 
All the senses may be the seat of 
illusions, 113. — Illusions, their in- 
fluence on actions, 115 

Illusions of sight, 113. — Illusions of 
touch 115. — Illusions of smell, 115. 
— Illusions of taste, 115. — Illusions 
may be transformed into halluci- 
nation, or vice versa, 146. — Symp- 
toms, 438 

Imagination, its influence on hallu- 
cinations, 285, 286, 290, 375 

Imbecility, hallucinations in, 162 

Imitation, its influence on hallucina- 
tions, 110, 444 

Impression, distressing, of hallucina- 
tions, 48 

Impressions powerful, their influence 
on hallucinations, 106 

Impressions sensorial, how they act 
in the brain, 357 



Inclining the head, act of, 58. — Case 
of, 58 

Incubes, 319 

Insanity of drunkards, its influence, 
164 

Insensibility, 299 

Instantaneous hallucination may be 
produced, 47.— Cases, 47, 48 

Internal hallucinations, 80, 85 

Intermittent hallucinations in fevers, 
269_ 

Isolation, its influence on hallucina- 
tions, 59 

Isolated hallucinations, 45 



Jerome, Saint, his hallucination of 
flying, 94 

Joan of Arc, her hallucination, 387 

Johnson, Dr., 66 

Josephus, Fl., collective cases of 
illusion, 108. — His case of previ- 
sion, 234 

Julian, his hallucination, 310, 373 



K. 



Keff, influence of on hallucinations, 
44 



Langlet Dufresnoy, his remarks on 
apparitions, 289 

Last judgment, book of, explanation 
given by some authors, 367 

Lelut, his definition of hallucina- 
tion, 33. — His doctrine of hallu- 
cinations, 352 

Leuret, his definition of hallucina- 
tion, 33. — His division, 36. — His 
hallucinations in a state of weak- 
ness, 58. — Ecstasy of the alien- 
ated, 230. — His doctrine of hallu- 
cinations, 397. — Objections to his 
system, 491. — Danger of his sys- 
tem, 492 

Lorry, his two cases of somnambu- 
lism, 249 

Louandre, Ch., his opinion of hallu- 
cinations, 390 

Loyola, his hallucinations, 380 

Luther, his hallucinations, 383 

Lycanthropy, its influence on hallu- 
cinations and illusions, 134, 298. 
—Case, 298 



550 



INDEX. 



M. 



Macario, hallucinations in demono- 
mania, 319 

Machiavel, admits prevision, 236.— 
Case of prevision, 237 

Magic, its influence on hallucina- 
tions, 297 

Magnetism ; The possessed, insane 
persons who see what passes 
within them, 85. — Hallucinations 
in, 233 

Maistre, de, admits prevision, 236 

Maladies mental, their action on 
hallucinations, 345 

Maladies nervous, other than insan- 
ity, their action on hallucinations, 
347 

Maladies of different kinds, their 
action on hallucinations, 348 

Malebranche, his explanation of 
false ideas, introduction, 18. — 
His hallucination, 66. — His ex- 
planation of sensations, 366 

Mania, hallucinations in, 141 

Manoury, his hallucination of Ur- 
bain Grandier, 311 

Marathon, illusions of sight, 108 

Marc, his hallucinations of sight, 
smell, and taste, 119 

Marcel, his observations on the hal- 
lucinations of drunken delirium, 
164 

Mathey, case of recognized halluci- 
nation, 48. — Case of lycanthropy, 
299 

Maury, Al., his hypnagogical hallu- 
cinations, 189. — Hallucinations in 
periodical dreams, 189 

Medicine, legal, hallucinations con- 
sidered in point of view of, 497^ > , 

Meister, his opinion on the state be- 
tween sleeping and waking, 42 

Memory, its action on hallucina- 
tions, 374 

Meningitis, hallucinations, 263 

Meningitis, cerebro-spinal, halluci- 
nations in, 264 

Michea, his definition of hallucina- 
tions, 34. — Hallucinations divided, 
419 

Michelet, his appreciation of hallu- 
cinations, 392 

Middle Ages, influence of hallucina- 
tions on the, 1, 309 

Mirage, its action on hallucinations, 
326 



Mohammed, appreciation of his hal- 
lucinations, by Dr. Renauldin, 398 

Molenes, Paul de, influence of reve- 
rie on hallucinations, 45 

Monomania, hallucinations in, 119 

Moreau, of la Sarthe, case of halluci- 
nation in ataxical fever, 267 

Moreau, of Tours, his observations 
on the hallucinations of Haschish, 
339. — His hallucinations at will, 
370 

Muller, his opinion of the senses, 409 

Mysticism, 306 

Mystic ecstasy, 224. — Mystic ideas 
favorable to hallucinations, 300 



N. 



Napier, Richard, his hallucinations, 
297 

Napoleon, his belief in his star, 61 

Narcotics, their action on hallucina- 
tions, 344 

Nervous system, its influence on hal- 
lucinations, 282 

Nervous hallucinations in diseases, 
163 

Neuralgia, hallucinations in, 179 

Newton, hallucinations produced by 
concentrating the rays of the sun, 
41 

Nicolai, the librarian, his hallucina- 
tions, 53 

Night, its influence on hallucina- 
tions, 287, 311 

Nightmare, The, 25. — As in dreams, 
consciousness may exist that the 
events passing are unreal, 184. — 
Epidemic hallucinations, 186, 311 

North, beliefs of the, their influence 
on hallucinations, 133 

Nostalgia, its influence on halluci- 
nations, 287 



O. 



Obscurity, its influence on illusions, 
110, 186 

Ointments, their influence on hallu- 
cinations and illusions, 130 

Old Nick, 325 

Organs, their action on hallucina- 
tions, 352. — Refutation of this ex- 
clusive doctrine, 354 

Orient, its influence on reverie, 44 



INDEX. 



551 



Panic fear, 108 

Paralysis, general, its influence on 
actions, 143. — Hallucinations in, 
159 

Parchappe, his definition of halluci- 
nations, 34 

Paterson, his division of hallucina- 
tions, 37. — Case of recognized hal- 
lucination, 55. — Case of struggles 
of mind, 59 

Pellagra (hallucination in), 274 

Penitentiary (system), its influence 
on hallucinations, 288 

Phenomena, psycho-sensorial, of hal- 
lucinations, 413 

Phenomena, sensorial, of hallucina- 
tions, 418, 424 

Physiology of hallucinations, 409 

Places, their influence on hallucina- 
tions, 419 

Platea, illusions of hearing, 108 

Pliny, his case of illusions, 108 

Pneumonia (hallucinations in), 270 

Pope, his hallucination, 67 

Poqueville, his case of hallucination 
from opium, 332 

Possessed, The, their hallucinations, 
85 

Preoccupations, their influence on 
hallucinations, 315 

Presentiments, 195 

Prevision, 234. — Case of Josephus 
relative to the peasant Jesus, 234 

Prevision, its influence on hallucina- 
tions, 287 

Procopius, hallucinations of demons, 
268 

Prodromes of hallucinations, 76 

Prognosis of hallucinations, 454 

Progress of hallucinations, 445, 461 

Psychical (hallucinations), 446 

Psychology, its influence on halluci- 
nations, 351 

Psycho-sensorial, psychical (halluci- 
nations), 409 



R. 



Rage (hallucinations in), 179 
Ranee (de), his hallucination, 64 
Ravaillac, his illusion of hearing, 
114 5 

Rayer, hallucinations in typhoid fe- 
ver, 267 



Recognized hallucination, 99 

Recollections of Madame de Crequi. 
— Case of presentiment, 201 

Religion, its influence on hallucina- 
tions, 351, 400 

Remorse, its influence on illusions, 
106, 311, 312, 314 

Repetition, voluntary, of the same ac- 
tions, 316 

Reverie, its action on hallucinations, 
42 (influence of the East on), 44 



Sabbath (note on the), 298 

Sacy (de), his explanation of hallu- 
cination, 195 

Sanguine (system), its influence on 
hallucinations, 284 

Sauvage, his definition of hallucina- 
tion, 32 

Semiramis, her hallucination, 311 

Senile hallucination in dementia, 
152 

Senses (part they play), 103 ; their 
intervention in hallucinations, 409 

Sensations may become confused by 
the influence of hallucinations, 
59 ; abnormal, may become the 
origin of a melancholy affection, 
113 

Sensibility, its development in cer- 
tain cases, 195 ; hearing wonder- 
fully acute, 196 ; do., smell, its 
development; sensibility on the 
approach of death, 243 ; of the de- 
velopment of the senses, 244, 256. 
— The prisoner of Angers d'Huy- 
gens, the young musician of M. 
Vincent, 256; other cases, 274, 316 

Sexes, their influence on hallucina- 
tions, 319 

Sexual (intercourse), observed in de- 
monomania, 128, 132 

Sigmond, his opinion on the super- 
natural, 60 ; his case of presenti- 
ment, 199 

Silvio Pellico, his hallucination, 287 

Simonides, his hallucination in a 
dream, 194 

Sleeplessness, characteristics of hal- 
lucinations in, 361 

Smell, the hallucinations of, 94 

Socrates, his hallucination, 399 

Solitude, its influence on hallucina- 
tion, 325, 363 



552 



INDEX. 



Somnambulism (hallucinations in), 
244. — Case, 245 ; day somnambu- 
lism, 246. — Case, 246 ; influence 
of somnambulism on actions, 248. 
— Case, 249.— Case, Madame Plan- 
tin, 251 ; explanation of somnam- 
bulism, 256 

Sorcerers, their hallucination of 
touch, 93. — Their presence at the 
Sabbath purely visionary, 297 

Spinello, his hallucination of the 
devil, 87, 296 

Spirits, belief in ; its influence on 
hallucinations; introduction, 1, 
300 

Star of great men, what is meant by, 
60. — Case of Napoleon, 61. — Case 
of Lord Castlereagh, 61. — Case of 
Bernadotte, 64. — Case of Crom- 
well, 68 

State, hallucinatory, 438 

State, intermediate between sleeping 
and waking, 42, 437 

State, morbid, its influence on hal- 
lucinations, 52 

Statistics of hallucinations, 117. — 
In monomania, 118. — In stupidity, 
135. — In mania, 141. — In demen- 
tia 152. — In general paralysis, 159. 
— In delirium tremens, 161 

Stupidity, hallucinations in, 134 

Substances causing hallucinations in 
initiations, 344 

Succubes, 319 

Supernaturalism, opinion of M. 
Guizot, Preface, ix 

Superstition, its influence on hal- 
lucinations, 286, 295 

Supernatural, The, is found in the 
lives of all celebrated characters, 
59 

Swedenborg, celebrated illuminist, 
his hallucinations, 214 ; his opi- 
nion on magnetism, 233 

Sympathy, its influence on halluci- 
nations, 71, 196 

Symptomatic hallucinations and illu- 
sions, 146 

Symptomatology of hallucinations, 
395, 434 

Syncope, its influence on halluci- 
nations, 57. — Hallucination in, 
274 

Szaf kowski, his definition of hallu- 
cination, 34. — Case of hallucina- 
tion in typhoid fever, 268 



T. 



Talma, changed spectators into ske- 
letons, 47 

Talleyrand Perigord, his case of pre- 
sentiment, 199 

Tartini, his devil's sonata, 202 

Tasso, his hallucination, 316 

Taste, hallucinations of, 95 

Temperament, its influence on hal- 
lucinations, 323 

Theodoric, his illusion, 107 

Theophilus Gautier, his description 
of Haschisch, 339 

Thierry, recital of collective illusion, 
184 

Thore, hallucinations in children, 
323 

Thucydides, hallucinations in the 
plague of Athens, 268 

Tingling in the ear, 113 

Touch, hallucinations of. — Case of 
Mathews, 93. — Case of the veteran 
of Calmeil, 93. — Case of an Eng- 
lishman, 93 

Treatment of hallucinations, 461 

Typhoid fever, hallucinations in, 268 



U. 



Ulysses, his companions changed 
into swine, 298 



Vampyrism, its influence on halluci- 
nations and illusions, 134, 307 

Vanhelmont, his dream of the soul, 
205 

Yiardot, his remarks on the halluci- 
nations of drunken delirium, 161 

Vigny, Alfred de, his opinion on the 
two kinds of reverie, 42 

Visionaries, 81 

Visions, 81 

Voltaire, his hallucinations in a 
dream, 189 

Vouivre, popular belief in the, 325 



W. 



Walter Scott, case of the physician, 
whose patient continually saw a 



INDEX. 



553 



skeleton, 49. — His remarks on the 
analogy of dreams and hallucina- 
tions, 189. — Case of somnambu- 
lism, 189. — His vision of somnam- 
bulism, 191. — His vision of Byron, 
289. — Case of remorse, 313 

Weakness, its influence on halluci- 
nations, 57. — Case of Leuret. — Do. 
case of Andrei, 58 

Westmoreland illusions, the effect of 
light, 106 

Wigan, his case of the painter who 
evoked models at will, 46. — Case 



of recognized hallucinations hav- 
ing caused death, 48. — Case, illu- 
sion, 106 

Will, its influence on the production 
of hallucinations, 46. — Case of the 
painter, 46. — Case of Talma, 47. 
— Hallucinations produced by will 
may exist without its concurrence, 
60, 369, 370.— Case of Blake, 85 

Wills, influence of hallucinations on, 
102 



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